I spent a lot of my Saturday and Sunday journalling on stuff that’s already happened this year and just making sure that I’m on track with everything that I outlined back at the Spark summit in January.
(Btw – we’re already halfway through the first 90 days of 2026 so if you’ve let goals drift – this is your friendly reminder to check in and realign if things have fallen off 😉).
I tend to do this journalling the traditional way – i/e pen and paper – and this weekend I was using the new pen that we’ve been creating with Baronfig. Now, I don’t bring this up as a shameless plug for the pen (although you can check it out here if you’re interested) – but rather because I wanted to talk more about this idea of liminality and liminal spaces.
As we’ve been working on this collaboration, this concept of liminal space has begun to take up more and more of my headspace and the more I’ve realised how much we’re all missing by constantly rushing from one thing to the next. And in optimising for speed or efficiency, we often optimise away the space to actually think about what we’re doing.
Think about your typical day. You finish a meeting and immediately jump into the next one. You complete a task and instantly start another. You finish reading an article and immediately scroll to the next thing. There’s barely any breathing room between the things we do and if there is, we usually resort to opening up Instagram, checking Slack, checking our emails – basically doing stuff that ‘fills the time’ – I know that’s become my default.
But that means we lose the space to actually think about what we’re doing.
There’s this great quote from Anne-Laure Le Cunff (who writes a lot about mindful productivity and these sorts of ideas) where she talks about liminal spaces as “the transitional periods where transformation happens” – and it’s that transformation that’s been lost by our lazy defaults or hyperfocus on optimisation.
Because here’s the thing: when we rush from one thing straight into the next, we don’t give ourselves time to reflect on what just happened, consolidate what we learned, or properly prepare for what’s coming next. We end up in this constant state of motion without much actual progress or growth.
It’s a bit like the difference between divergent thinking and convergent thinking – divergent thinking is when you’re exploring possibilities, brainstorming, letting your mind wander and make unexpected connections. It’s messy and open-ended. Convergent thinking is when you’re focusing, deciding, executing. It’s structured and goal-oriented.
We need both. But most of us are constantly in convergent mode – we’re always executing, always moving forward, always getting stuff done. We never give ourselves space for the divergent stuff.
And the thing is, the best ideas often emerge in those in-between moments when you’re not actively trying to solve a problem. It’s in the shower, on a walk, during that 5-minute gap between meetings where you’re just staring out the window.
That’s where divergence happens. That’s where new connections form. That’s where you have those “aha” moments that actually move things forward in meaningful ways.
But if you’re constantly rushing from one thing to the next, you never get that space. You never allow for that emergence.
Now, you might be thinking – wait a minute, didn’t you talk about the importance of time blocking last week? Isn’t that the opposite of this? Actually, I don’t think the two things are contradictory at all. Time blocking is about being intentional with your time and protecting what matters. And part of what matters – part of what deserves to be protected – is the space to think, reflect, and just exist between tasks.
In fact, I’ve started literally blocking out those buffer periods. I’ll put “Buffer” or “Thinking Time” in my calendar between meetings. It sounds silly, but if I don’t protect it, it disappears.
Here are a few small things I’ve been building into my routine (and my calendar):
1. Add buffer time between meetings. Instead of booking meetings back-to-back, I now try to leave at least 10-15 minutes between them. I use that time to just decompress, make a cup of tea, look out the window. No agenda, no task list, just existing.
2. Go for walks without my phone. This is a big one. When I go for walks now, I often leave my phone at home (or at least put it on Do Not Disturb). It forces me into that divergent thinking space where my mind can wander and make connections.
3. Journal in the morning before diving into work. Just 5 minutes of writing about whatever’s on my mind helps me process thoughts that would otherwise just be buzzing around in the background all day.
4. Take an actual lunch break. Revolutionary, I know. But seriously, stepping away from the desk for 30 minutes makes a massive difference.
The interesting thing is that these pauses, these liminal spaces, don’t feel productive in the moment. They feel like you’re “doing nothing.” But that’s precisely the point.
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is nothing at all.
As I’ve been talking about a lot in these emails and within LifeOS – productivity isn’t just about doing more stuff. It’s about doing the right stuff, with intention, in a way that actually moves you towards the life you want to be living.
And for that, you need space to think. Space to reflect. Space to just be.
Hit reply and let me know if you’ve noticed this pattern in your own life too – I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts.
Have a great week 😊
Ali xx