I came across a LinkedIn post today about the importance of balancing “doing mode” with “spacious mode” – the kind of expansive, reflective thinking that leads to strategic insights and innovation. It got me thinking about a trap I find myself falling into regularly.

This hits close to home. I’m guilty of this myself.

Strategic thinking feels unproductive because there’s no box to check, no tangible output to point to after a session. You can’t measure “I spent 2 hours thinking through our market positioning” the same way you can measure “I cleared 47 emails.”

Our brains are wired for that dopamine hit of completion. Operational tasks give us that - even when they’re not moving the needle.

But deep thinking? It’s messy, non-linear, and often feels like you’re doing “nothing.”

The cruel irony is that after burning through our mental energy on the urgent but trivial stuff, we’re left with no gas in the tank for the thinking that actually matters. Yet somehow we can still push through another round of emails or status updates on discipline and sheer will alone.

We’ve trained ourselves to mistake motion for progress. And the price we pay is losing the space where our best work actually happens.