A few weeks ago I attempted a design for a specialty cabinet in an important room, and failed. The concept my clients and I had agreed upon pursuing seemed like the best choice at the time but when it made its way into my first sketches it just wasn’t working. So as they say, “back to the drawing board,” which in my case is literally what happens.

But one thing I’ve learned over these many years is sometimes it’s not best to rush back to the drawing board too soon. Especially when I’m sensing that the problem is deeper than some superficial changes. So I didn’t rush back and informed my client I was pressing pause for a few days in order to give it some necessary space. Now, a lesser client, a client fixated on more immediate concerns like project delays, might have responded with something like, “So … you’re not going to be working on my project for a few days?” Or, “How exactly is not thinking about this problem going to solve this problem?” But my client is not a lesser client. She understands that she’ll literally be living her life inside the consequences of all these decisions we’re making. And she understood that we were all stuck in a story that wasn’t working and in order to think past that story I needed to stop reading it for a while.

Three weeks went by. And in that time two important things happened. The first thing that happened was, as planned, absolutely nothing. Other than seeing the redesign as an item on my To Do list I kept it at arms length and gave it virtually no thought at all. The second thing was the old story faded from my mind, and with it faded the old rules that we couldn’t see beyond.

So yesterday, after yesterday’s show in fact, I sat down to give it all another look, and boom, there it was. With the power of the old story broken I saw the real problem for the first time and the answer was obvious. So I sketched it up, sent it out, and within minutes got my answers: “That’s it!” “Perfect!” “Beautiful!” “Nailed it!”

So here’s the lesson: Take it from someone who is always creating, always making, always building, always injecting intention into the world around him … sometimes the best thing you can intentionally build into your life is nothing at all—space, downtime, silence, rest. Sometimes the best agenda is no agenda. Sometimes the most intentional use of your schedule is to intentionally schedule yourself to do nothing in particular.

If you make yourself available for anything, guess what … anything might just happen. If you give yourself permission to step away from the battle, you might just gain enough distance to see it with new eyes.

It’s Sunday, December 6th, 2020 and here in California we’re literally on the eve of another Covid lockdown. Perhaps now is a good time to take a little more time for you, plan to not plan, let go of some stories and the rules that come with them, and just give yourself some space.

It might just be a silver lining to this mess. Who knows, you might even an answer or two, and find a way to finally build yourself a beautiful life.