Years ago, as a VP of IT for a Fortune 500 company, I found myself in a paradox of success. I had a corner office, a talented team and a reputation as someone who could handle any crisis, but I was trapped in a relentless cycle of meetings, emails and urgent demands. My days stretched from 6 AM to midnight, constantly putting out fires and making snap decisions without time for genuine strategic thought.
The breaking point came during a particularly brutal week when I realized I had attended 37 meetings in five days. I was exhausted, my team was burned out and despite all our activity, we weren’t making meaningful progress on our strategic initiatives. That experience led me to discover the transformative power of what productivity experts call a strategic pause.
The hidden cost of hyperconnectivity
My experience wasn’t unique. Research from Harvard Business Review shows that executives now spend nearly 23 hours a week in meetings, up from less than 10 hours in the 1960s. This dramatic increase has coincided with declining productivity and rising burnout rates across organizations. In my own company, I noticed team anxiety increasing, decision-making quality deteriorating and innovation suffering as everyone struggled to keep up.
