A Minute to Think: Reclaim Creativity, Conquer Busyness, and Do Your Best Work

Consulting firm CEO Funt offers solutions for burnout in her encouraging debut. A prevalent “culture of insatiability,” she suggests, creates hectic days and leads to stress and underproductivity, for which the cure is a “strategic pause”: putting space on one’s calendar for thinking, rest, and creativity. These pauses offer an opportunity for professional enrichment and can improve productivity by reducing busywork, identifying what’s most urgent, and making use of team members’ strengths, she writes. Funt suggests “training wheel” exercises to get readers to incorporate pauses into their own lives; using one’s commute time to let one’s mind wander, for example, is a good place to start. As for the office, Funt advises “clarity, brevity, and punch” when writing emails, choosing the correct medium for communications with colleagues, and changing a company’s culture to incorporate patience and openness. Examples from Funt’s work with corporate leaders and personal anecdotes pepper the pages and keep things fresh: “To this day, I remember how good it felt to just give up and sit for a while.” Burned-out readers will find this a much-needed, easy to implement call for calm. Agent: David Doerrer, Abrams Artists Agency. (Aug.)