Transition Time

Peter Bregman comes up week after week with practical stuff about leadership on the Harvard Business site – and does it with self-effacing humour.

In a recent article called Optimize Transition Time (and stop being late) he writes about how he’s the sort of person who thinks if he just drives fast enough or runs fast enough he’ll make it on time. His wife, on the other hand, needs ‘transition time’ and that takes advance planning – if you want to be somewhere for seven, then you may have to start ‘leaving’ by six, and that means getting ready by 5.30 and so on. (His example is a lot more complex!)

A lack of transition time, he points out, means that lateness for scheduled meetings compounds until the last meeting of the day is so far over time it’s finished before it’s begun. Moreover, transition time gives breathing space, allows for thinking about the meeting coming up (instead of trying to think on the fly) and is easier on the stress levels.