This was the first run of this issue, sent on 18 April 2026. A revised version went out on 14 June, and that is the one to read if you only read one.
5 MINUTE SUNDAY - Every Sunday. One tip. Under 5 minutes.
You're booked back-to-back from 9am.
You haven't had an uninterrupted hour to think in three weeks.
And the work you know would actually move things forward keeps getting pushed to "when things calm down."
Things are not going to calm down unless you make a change.
— 01 — ONE LEADERSHIP TIP
You're managing everyone else's time. Nobody is managing yours.
Leaders get good at protecting their team's focus, clear agendas, efficient meetings, no unnecessary interruptions. The diary fills itself. The important work doesn't make it in. If you anything like me, end of the day, I'm exhausted, and asking myself: what the hell did I do today???
The deeper issue is an identity one. Most founders and senior leaders succeeded because they were great at responding: fast, decisive, and available. That skill got you here. But at this level, AVAILABILITY is not the job. THINKING is your job. And thinking requires time that you have to protect in advance, not find in the gaps.
What's really happening is that your calendar reflects everyone's needs except the most important one: the uninterrupted, high-quality attention that only you can bring to the hardest problems in your business. That attention keeps getting scheduled last. So it never happens.
Reactive leaders fill their calendar. Strategic leaders design it.
Warren Buffett reads for 5–6 hours a day. He doesn't sit in back-to-back meetings. He doesn't approve every decision. He makes one or two high-quality calls a year , and those calls are only possible because of the thinking time he fiercely protects. He's not managing the business. He's thinking about it.
This should be you.
The one or two decisions that only you can make , and the protected thinking time that makes those decisions worth something.
The takeaway: Your best decisions don't come from being available. They come from being prepared.
— 02 — ONE COMPANY WORTH KNOWING
Notion : the productivity platform that scaled to a $10B valuation with a famously small, focused team.
Yes you probably use it , but did you know : Notion isn't the product : it's how the people who built it worked. The core team operated with deep work blocks built into the day and a strong bias toward async over meetings. Leadership treated maker time as a structural input, not a personal preference. The founders were visible on outcomes, not available on demand. That protected attention is what produced a product used by millions, built by a team that never ballooned.
The lesson: Your output as a leader is only as good as the quality of the thinking time you protect for yourself.
— 03 — ONE THING TO ACT ON
Do this before next Sunday.
Block 60 minutes of focus time. Guard it like a hawk. Right now, open your calendar and find one slot this week morning is best, before the noise starts. Block it. Label it with something specific:
- A strategy question you've been avoiding
- A book chapter you keep saying you'll get to
- A decision that deserves real thinking, not a rushed yes between meetings
- Or nothing. Just silence and a blank page.
It doesn't matter what fills it. What matters is that nothing else does. No calls. No Slack. No "quick questions." This hour is yours.
That's where your best work lives.
⏱ Time required: 10 minutes to block it. 60 minutes to protect it.
I worked through this exact issue with a CEO recently. We blocked his focus time, set up the structure around it, and protected it from his calendar. In that hour each week he redefined the entire strategy for his company.
For the first time in years, he finally had space to think.
If that sounds familiar, let's have a virtual coffee, on me!
See you next Sunday.
— Alisa
Fractional COO · Executive Adviser · Keynote Speaker
Ready to break through your leadership ceiling?
I work 1:1 with founders and senior leaders who are done being the bottleneck. Book a free 20-min call →
