Smart leaders know they don't need better systems; they need to stop forcing focus.

Capacity, not time, is often the real productivity bottleneck for high achievers.

"Old lady hobbies" like crafts and crocheting can enable deeper flow and sharper thinking for leaders.

I got talked into volunteering for my daughter’s Girl Guide group. Shockingly, it saved me time.

For years, I had deliberately avoided volunteering because I was busy—running my private practice and my consulting business and writing a book proposal…there was always something else that needed my focus.

Then my 8-year-old’s Guiding group was short on leaders. I got gently strong-armed into signing up. And by strong-armed, I mean the group Brown Owl politely asked if I would help, and I said yes.

So for 90 minutes every Monday night, I helped organize 24 third graders as they made collages out of magazines and did river cleanups and crafted bumblebee houses out of tin cans and toilet paper tubes.

It was exhausting. I don’t know how teachers do this every day. But it was also fun. And joyful. And surprisingly productive.

Because after I started volunteering, even though I lost 90 minutes a week to crafts and community service projects, I wrote more articles in 60 days than I had in the previous 12 months.

Here’s the neuroscience.

“Old lady hobbies” are the new Pomodoro timer for women in leadership

Before my daughter was born, I committed to crocheting a blanket.

My mom had the same........

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