What You'll Discover In This Episode:
Ever seen this kids puzzle game?
I have it on my desk right now.
The goal of the game is to slide the scrambled tiles around strategically to put them into the correct numerical order: 1 through 4 across the first row, 5 through 9 across the second row, and so on. The game has 15 pieces and one blank slot.
If it had 16 pieces and no blank slots, the game would be impossible because there’d be no wiggle room, no holding spot, nowhere to slide the pieces around as needed to put them in the correct. You’d be stuck. Game over.
I use this puzzle game as a visual to show my clients the power of white space and why it is necessary to schedule it into your day.
Let’s be honest…
Sometimes your day gets derailed no matter how well you originally planned it.
Perhaps a client calls with an "urgent" issue.
Maybe a team member needs immediate help.
Or a technology decides to rebel right when you have back-to-back meetings scheduled.
For most business owners, such interruptions don't just happen occasionally—they're part of their daily reality.
That’s precisely why scheduling white space as a buffer is important.
It acts as that blank space on the puzzle game, allowing you time and space to move around tasks, activities, and meetings on your schedule to accommodate untimely disruptions.
Without white space, you’d be stuck and your day derailed. White space effectively protects your high-value activities and priorities from getting derailed.
It gives you the ability to handle the inevitable without sacrificing the important, and is the difference between constantly putting out fires versus actually building something sustainable.
Today, I'm pulling back the curtain on white space—your secret scheduling weapon that can be the difference between ending your day feeling accomplished versus feeling like you've been in a train wreck.
In this episode of the Small Business Straight Talk Podcast, I dive into why utilizing white space as a strategy is so powerful, why you're probably resisting it, and exactly how to implement it so you can finally feel in control of your time.
