Taking your time with a process or the development of a strategy doesn’t necessarily mean spending countless hours on continuous work. Taking your time is just as much about allowing an idea, process, or strategy to mature and evolve. It involves working on something, setting it aside, and then returning to it with a fresh perspective before finalizing it. This cycle of effort and pause creates space for adjustments and improvements that may not have been obvious at first.
Giving ideas space to grow – without coming to a halt
Think of it like letting a good wine mature. Just as wine needs time to develop its most complex flavors, a strategy or idea also needs time to ripen. But – and this is important – that doesn’t mean you’re putting everything on hold in the meantime. Letting something mature is not the same as doing nothing. It’s about creating a rhythm where you work on several processes in parallel. While one idea is left to develop in the background, you continue moving forward with something else – and when you return, you do so with a fresh perspective and sharper insight.
Take, for example, a strategy workshop where everyone quickly agrees on something that feels euphorically brilliant. In the eagerness to get started, it’s easy to overlook important details or challenges that only become apparent once implementation begins. These issues might have been avoided by letting the strategy mature for a week or two, and then gathering the team again to make the necessary adjustments before finalizing the decision.
Fresh eyes for better results
Another parallel can be drawn to the writing of a blog post, user manual, or other documentation. It might look great at first glance, but if you set it aside and review it later with fresh eyes, you often discover ways to improve clarity and usability.
Or think about when you’re looking for something you’ve lost. You may have stared at the same spot several times without seeing it – but after a break, you suddenly spot it right where you already looked. In the same way, we often get stuck with a challenge; only by stepping back and giving our brains time to process in the background does the solution often reveal itself.
Maturity in marketing and sales
In marketing, it’s about giving a message time to sink in before evaluating its effectiveness. I’ve experienced countless times that just as a message starts gaining traction and really picking up momentum, it gets changed. These repeated shifts often cause confusion – people stop listening because they’re always waiting for the next message.
In sales, as in many areas of business, time to mature is an underestimated success factor. It’s not just about pushing for a quick deal, but about giving the customer time to let the need for a product or service develop naturally. When we give both the customer and the sales process time, the result is often a more sustainable and satisfying outcome for both parties.
In conclusion
Allowing time for maturation is not a sign of inefficiency; it’s an acknowledgment that good ideas – like good wine – need time to reach their full potential. In a world where speed is often valued more than quality in order to keep up with rapid development, it’s worth remembering that the best results often come to those who dare to wait.
