Following on from my previous post, there are some types of travel such as long-haul flying that can be good for enforced time away from the day to day world of emails (but please no wifi or mobiles on planes…) giving you time and (sometimes) space, allowing you to think more strategically. But the downsides of this, such as needing time to recover from jet lag, higher health risks and reduced performance whilst travelling quickly counteract any benefits.
Working from home has always been a good traditional alternative to the office, allowing you to make a physical break from the ‘day to day’ environment and focus on different issues. However, working from home for a lot of people now means a long series of conference calls focusing on tactical issues.
Why not start to look at setting up areas of the office for contemplation, concentration or longer term strategic activities. Create ‘zones’ within your building that are designed for different work types – focused work, collaboration, refreshing. For those areas that are designed for focused strategic work, make them outside of wifi or mobile coverage to help with the enforcement of this being strategic time.