- Kevin Sanders
- Dec 27, 2025
- 5 min read
December 27, 2025
Read Time - 4 minutes
"Rest is not work's adversary. Rest is work's partner."
~ Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
You're walking the dog. Or standing in the shower. Or staring out the window sipping your third cup of coffee, half-listening to holiday music in the background.
And suddenly, it clicks…
The real problem with your advising structure. Why that faculty conflict keeps happening. What's actually missing from your strategic plan. The conversation you've been avoiding with your associate dean.
So why now, in the middle of your break?
Because your brain finally has room to breathe—to connect dots you couldn't see when you were consumed by email and back-to-back meetings.
There's actual science behind this. Research from UC Santa Barbara found that people who took breaks allowing their minds to wander showed 40% improvement in creative problem-solving compared to those who pushed through without breaks. Neuroscientists call it the "default mode network"—the part of your brain that makes unexpected connections when you're not actively focused on a problem. Your shower insights aren't random. They're your brain doing exactly what it's designed to do when given mental space.
Here's the thing, though: Most leaders make one of two mistakes with these break-time insights. And both mistakes waste what could be your most valuable strategic thinking of the year.
The Two Traps
Trap 1: Immediately chase it down
You have a clarity moment about restructuring your department's workload model. So you spend the next three hours of your break sketching it out. You see the flaw in your assessment process, so you start drafting the new rubric. It feelsproductive.
But here's what's actually happening: You're using rest time to do work. And you're doing that work without the input, constraints, and reality-checks that come from being back on campus with actual people and actual information.
Result: You burn out your break AND create work that may not survive its first contact with January.
Trap 2: Do nothing and assume you'll remember
You tell yourself, "I'll deal with this when I get back." And maybe you even believe you'll remember the insight with the same clarity it has right now.
Most likely? You won't.
You'll remember that you had a thought about advising. But you won't remember why it felt important, or what you were seeing that made it click. The urgency will be gone. The insight will feel abstract.
Result: You lose the strategic clarity that break gave you within 72 hours of returning to campus.
A Better Way: Build the Bridge
Your break is for having ideas, not executing them. Your job right now: build the bridge to January.
1. Capture, Don’t Chase
When you have an insight, write it down immediately. Not a full plan—just enough to preserve what you're seeing.
Here’s a simple format:
The insight: [one sentence describing what you see]
Why it matters: [one sentence about the impact or cost of not addressing it]
What I noticed: [the pattern or problem that led to this insight]
Example:
Insight: Our advising model prioritizes faculty convenience over student success
Why it matters: We're losing first-year students who can't get help when they need it
What I noticed: Students who leave couldn't reach their advisor during crunch periods
This takes two minutes, not two hours. You're preserving the idea without doing the work.
2. Block the Time Now to Deal With It Later
This next step is what many people miss.
Before you return to work, look at your captured insights. For each one, block time in January or February to actually work on it. Put the insight itself in the calendar event description so you remember the context when the time comes.
Tip: I recommend doing both steps together—capture the insight, then immediately schedule the time to work on it later. That way it's truly handled and off your plate.
This is the bridge. Your break thinking gets protected space to become actual leadership work—but not until you're back in context and can test it against reality.
Bottom Line
The reason you're having these insights right now is because you finally have the conditions your brain needs for strategic thinking.
Distance from daily chaos. Space to wander. Freedom from the email dopamine cycle. Time for patterns to emerge instead of just reacting.
I wouldn’t call it a holiday miracle. This is what happens when you give your brain room to do what it does best.
Which means... You could create these conditions more regularly if you chose to.
Not every week. But more than never.
Let me be direct: Our job isn't to be the best email responders or the most available meeting-attenders. We're here to see around corners, connect dots, and solve problems that require perspective. We have context nobody else has—on our students, our programs, our institutional challenges. Those strategic insights you're having right now? That's the actual work. Protecting time to think isn't indulgent—it's the job. If all we do is execute other people's urgent requests, we're abdicating the part of leadership only we can do.
What if you blocked 90 minutes every other Friday—no meetings, no email, just thinking? What if you treated those blocks as sacred as your leadership team meeting? Many academic leaders spend entire semesters in reactive mode—always triaging, never actually leading. Your break is showing you what's possible. The question is: what will you do with that knowledge?
Build the bridge. Capture what you're seeing. Schedule protected time to test it. And then ask yourself what it would take to create those conditions during the semester.
Your best strategic thinking might be happening right now. Don't waste it by working on it too soon. And don't go back pretending you can lead well without ever creating space for it again.
Does this track with your experience? If you've found a good way to capture insights without chasing them during break—or if you approach this differently—hit reply and share it. I read every response.
Thanks for reading. See you next Saturday!
P.S. Want help building those protected blocks for strategic thinking into your actual semester? I'm running a Group Coaching Cohort starting late January: Sustainable Campus Leadership. 8 academic leaders meeting biweekly to tackle burnout, protect time for what matters most, and build leadership systems that actually work. Space is limited. Learn more →
When you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:
💡 1:1 Coaching
When you need a thinking partner who gets higher ed leadership. We'll tackle your specific challenges—navigating politics, building systems that stick, protecting time for strategic work, or managing that difficult personality. Limited spots each quarter. → Reply and tell me what you're working on.
🗣️ Workshops & Speaking
Help your team stop spinning their wheels. Interactive sessions that teach practical skills: making better decisions faster, handling conflict productively, and creating systems that free up time instead of consuming it. Your campus. Your challenges. Tailored solutions. → Reply and tell me what you're looking for.
📥 Free Resource
Your First 14 Days: The essential playbook for new academic leaders [Download]