How should I use my holiday time?

I have a huge stack of business type reading to get through, should I get stuck into it in the summer holidays or kick back and relax?

I have a reading pile and it’s enormous. Even though I am quite addicted to buying books I find it a tough pile to get through, probably because despite the fact that it’s all business related, it doesn’t really feel like work and when time is scarce it often feels more appropriate to do real stuff than read stuff.

 The big pile of reading can weigh upon one’s mind and so when a holiday looms the temptation is to dig into the pile and start reading. But is that the best use of a holiday? Maybe not.

Because of the work I do with businesses around innovation I am often asked by individuals: ‘How can I be more innovative?” They rarely actually mean innovative in the true send sense of the word, but rather are asking: “How can I generate more ideas, how can I be more creative?”

One of the best ways to generate ideas is to ‘cross pollinate’. Cross pollinators are inspired by something that is done in a different industry, geography or context and they then translate it into their own business. Very successful cross pollinators are able to bring seemingly unrelated ideas or concepts cleverly into their own industry.

A lovely example of a cross pollinator was Clarence Birdseye, who was in the fur trading business in Canada when he saw the Inuits freezing fish in the cold outside to keep it fresh for longer. He came back from the trip, discarded fur trading and started the Birds Eye frozen food empire.

The point about cross pollinating though is that you can’t do it unless you expose yourself to a variety of different stimuli, or simply put, unless you are well- rounded. The person who travels far and reads widely will have a much broader experience from which to draw ideas to apply to their business context.

So rather than crack through your business reading list this summer holiday, can I suggest you indulge in reading for fun, experiencing for pleasure and spending time with your family. After all, you never know what good ideas you will generate.

PS. What to do with the big reading list pile? Bill Gates was famous for his “think week” where he would take himself off to total seclusion for a week every six months to get through it all. You may not need a week, how about one day per quarter?

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Julia Bickerstaff’s expertise is in helping businesses grow profitably. She runs two businesses: Butterfly Coaching, a small advisory firm with a unique approach to assisting SMEs with profitable growth; and The Business Bakery, which helps kitchen table tycoons build their best businesses. Julia is the author of “How to Bake a Business” and was previously a partner at Deloitte. She is a chartered accountant and has a degree in economics from The London School of Economics (London University).