Febraury 17, 2026
Stephen Covey used to tell a simple but uncomfortable story.
A lumberback is tirelessly sawing down a tree. He is exhausted, but he keeps going. Someone approaches him and says, “Why don’t you stop for a moment to sharpen the saw?”
The lumberjack replies, “I don’t have time. I’m too busy cutting.”
The story is a fable, but it describes quite accurately how many leaders work today.
The Daily Reality for many Leaders
Saturated calendars, back-to-back meetings, and urgent decisions at all times. The constant feeling that if you aren’t there, something will stall. The current context pushes hard in that direction: relentless layoffs, shrinking or reconfiguring teams—fewer people, same objectives.
The expectation is clear: do more with less. The reaction is almost automatic: accelerate, get involved in everything, and push the organization to the limit. This isn’t due to a lack of commitment, but because the short term is what is measured and rewarded.
The problem is not the effort. It is the lack of space to plan.
Planning involves an uncomfortable decision: creating time to think even when the context pushes you to react.
Yes, something might remain unresolved in the short term. But if we never make that pause, burnout is inevitable: for the leader, the team, and the organization.
When everything is urgent, thinking feels like a luxury and “designing the organization” feels like something for “later.” The result is predictable: less strategy, more reaction, and an organization increasingly dependent on individuals rather than the system.
Simple practices that make a real difference
It’s not about doing everything at once. It’s about institutionalizing the long term.
- Schedule a 2-hour session today with your team for one month from now, focused exclusively on structure, decisions, and long-term priorities. When that day arrives, the world will be on fire. Resisting the temptation to cancel is leadership.
- Define quarterly planning sessions with the full team. Not to review results, but to decide what to change in the system: focus, roles, and ways of working.
- Physically leave the office to think. Changing your environment changes the conversation and improves the quality of your decisions.
- Block a daily slot on your calendar (for example, from 8:00 to 9:30 AM, or the first block of the day) where no one can book you. Reserve it for thinking, designing, and high-value work.
- Use the Eisenhower Matrix as a practical tool. Separating tasks between urgent/important and placing deliberate focus on what is “important but not urgent” is one of the most effective ways to reduce future urgencies.
- Protect design time as if it were revenue. If it moves every time an urgency arises, the message to the team is clear: thinking doesn’t matter.
These spaces won’t eliminate problems immediately, but they reduce their frequency, their impact, and their dependence on you.
Summary
When leaders spend all their time reacting, the organization is not growing; it is surviving.
Designing the system is not lost time. It is the most important work of leadership.
En Power Inside Out, we help leaders who are willing to take that step: creating space to think, improving how they lead and make decisions, and building organizations that achieve better results with less effort and less burnout.
Don’t let your calendar dominate you. Be the one who sets the pace.
