Juliet Funt

HOW TAKING A MINUTE TO THINK CHANGES THE NATURE OF WORK
Do you wish you could stop the mayhem of work and life for a brief moment and just take a minute? Do you sense you could contribute more if there was a little more room in the day? Many people feel this way, but taking a restorative pause has felt impossible—until now.

You’re not alone in yearning for freedom from constant reactivity. Today’s global workforce is so fried that it belongs in the food court of a county fair. We’re relentlessly behind the curve, dousing fires everywhere, and our 3 a.m. insomnia provides the day’s only unscheduled time to think.

What we need again in our lives is the missing element of white space—short periods of open, unscheduled time that, when recaptured, change the very nature of work. White space is the stepping back, the strategic pause, and the oxygen that allows the sparks of our efforts to catch fire. It’s yours to reclaim, and this session will show you how.

In this lively session based on Juliet Funt’s new book, A Minute to Think, you’ll receive the permission, framework, and direction you need to regain control of your overloaded, caffeinated, inbox-worshiping workday and find a precious minute. Using memorable stories and razor-sharp instruction, Juliet will help you rediscover the meaning of your work, the way out of burnout and the liberty of your time.

Activity is Not Productivity: Raising Engagement Through Reclaiming WhiteSpace

Many wonderful companies are trapped in a thread of common denial. They believe pressure and incentives are enough to support workers who live perennially on the leading edge of burnout. That equation cannot be sustained. But with one vital new ingredient, WhiteSpace, organizations can free their talented teams to deliver their most engaged work — and sustain that commitment far into the future.

In this high-energy session, we examine the critical difference between activity and true productivity, between cramming in more tasks and selectively choosing to dive into the right ones with thoughtfulness. We also meet and arm ourselves against The Thieves of Productivity, a group of positive assets that often run amuck and trap us into low-value tasks. By examining the surprising downside of these attributes, we create a customized road map toward more WhiteSpace at the individual, team and organizational level.

Lastly, we explore The WhiteSpace Simplification Questions — four simple inquiries that provide endless insight and positive reframing around even the toughest individual and organizational hurdles.

The Reductive Mindset: Achieving Optimal Results Using the Tools of WhiteSpace

Employees today face many pressures in the Age of Overload: doing more with less, accelerating the speed and the global 24/7 demands of always being ON. They’re fooled into thinking they’re more productive than ever. But is that true?

Overloaded populations are used to their discomfort. But upon further investigation, it’s clear that their companies are suffering from one or more deficits. Sometimes it’s a quantity problem; you hear complaints about headcount and bandwidth. Sometimes it’s a quality issue; work level is slipping, and there’s no time to think high-altitude thoughts. Or it’s a sustainability issue; folks are surviving but asking, “How long can we keep this up?”

In this program, we consider a different path, one where a reductive lens helps pare back busyness and make room to reclaim and effectively use WhiteSpace. Also featured is actionable content that combats The Tools that Turn on You. These are support systems and devices that promise to improve our work style. In reality, they tend to defy boundaries, hijacking time and resources — think email, meetings, decks and more.

Igniting the Thoughtful Mind: How to Use WhiteSpace to Turbocharge Creativity

Is your company tasking you to be creative and innovative without providing the time to do it? You are not alone. Exertion has replaced thought. Innovation and creativity wither before an ever-increasing culture of complexity. But what if game-changing, breakthrough ideas are not inclined to battle through your crowded schedule and buzzing brain? What if they require WhiteSpace, or open fluid time, in order to grace us with their presence?

In this presentation, Juliet Funt asks critical questions behind the creative process: Is there a dial that can be adjusted back and forth from activity to creative receptivity? How would an adjustment of that dial affect the output of you and your teams?

This journey also chronicles tactics of the greatest creative thinkers in both business and other media, shining a light on the frameworks and processes they employ. Lastly, we’ll broaden our discussion to explore the Invisible Habits of Excellence, a constellation of internal behaviors related to many varieties of inward and outward thought.