How to Take Quiet Time in Order to Influence

For introverts, taking quiet time contributes to your ability to influence others by unleashing your most creative thoughts, sustaining your energy, increasing your understanding of yourself and others, and helping you maintain your focus.

Quiet Influencers use a variety of highly successful approaches to get their quiet time and turn it into a zone for calm reflection. There is no one right way to recharge and reflect, and no two introverts have precisely the same approach to stepping away. Many do so by creating structure to protect their quiet time, managing technology, and going within themselves. 

1. Create Structure and Protect Your Quiet Time

• Schedule and protect quiet times on your calendar. Make a date with yourself as important as your appointments with others. Consider the experience of Wally, a writer who calls himself a “borderline introvert.” A personable leadership coach and prolific writer, he swears by solitude. When discussing the option of joining writers’ groups, he laughingly said that he isn’t a “flocker.” Wally explained that he would rather write than talk about writing. Each morning, he schedules three hours to write and he invariably plants himself at his desk. He methodically writes blog entries and posts them on social networking sites. Wally influences others by engaging with people online and promoting his colleagues’ ideas. He recently surpassed blog post #1,000 and has over 9,000 followers on Twitter. Now that’s a lot of influence that emerges out of scheduled quiet time!
• Get up early.  You can use the morning to get a head start. Sophia Dembling, a popular blogger and author of The Introvert’s Way has had over two million views on her Introvert’s Corner blog. Sophia said, “I work alone, so finding quiet time comes very naturally. In fact, I find a lot of quiet time! I had houseguests last week…and so sometimes in the morning I wouldn’t get out of bed right away. Instead, I’d bring my computer into bed. And I just would spend a little time by myself before I got up and faced them. I adore these people, but it was a lot of people!” 
• Keep eating lunch alone. Many introverts say they feel guilty for eating lunch alone. Don’t. Others have become a proponent of these breaks, which give them the opportunity to be with themselves, no devices in hand. Using your midday break to regroup and recharge can be an ideal strategy, especially if you don’t do it every day. Take for example David, an executive who works at a software company. He says that he always dines alone on days that involve a lot of time in front of people. By having a book in front of him, he says he wards off friendly would be visitors.
• Build in breaks. Since being “out there” can be so draining, be sure to take yourself out of the office, away from the conference, or removed from wherever work happens to be — if only for a few minutes. Even a short walk outside or down the hall will make a difference. You will find yourself returning to your influencing role refreshed and re-energized.
• Select your optimal working environment. Think about where you are most effective. With technology and company practices allowing more latitude as to where and when work gets done, you may well have more control over your environment than you may assume. A flexible work environment can provide the quiet time you need. Try negotiating for home-based work a few days a week, or, if you work in an open-plan office, book a conference room for time each day in order to be by yourself.

2) Manage Technology

• Turn off your devices. Go ahead. Try it. Push that “off” or silent button during your quiet time. Wait until later — preferably a planned time — to turn them back on. Even for introverts, it can be extremely challenging to set aside certain times to check electronic devices. Yet ongoing interruptions become huge distractions when they break up the blocks of time you need to think and create. It is commonly thought that it takes from 4 – 15 seconds to get back on track from every email interruption. Find applications (“apps”) and software programs that help you manage this. These programs can schedule your social media postings, turn off internet access after a set period, and even manage what lands in your inbox.
• Reduce stimuli. Adapt your environment to foster quiet time. Introverts often dim the lights and use white noise machines to drown out the cacophony and create a calm, quiet atmosphere. If stimuli interfere with your quiet time, avoid noisy restaurants and crowded places; opt instead for the quiet of your home or a hidden corner of a park.
• Turn off all sound. Try taking a walk without headphones and driving with the radio off. Use earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones on a plane. Just being quiet allows your brain and body to take a much-needed rest so that you can restore your energy and let the creative thoughts flow in. A few years back, I took an Amtrak train from Baltimore to New York City. After a long day, I settled into my seat on the crowded car and immediately noticed that something felt different from past excursions on commuter trains in the Northeast. What was it? Suddenly it struck me. No one was shouting into a cell phone or engaging in loud chatter. I looked around and noticed people dozing, commuters dreaming out the window, folks reading, writing and zoning out. I had landed in the middle of the “Quiet Car!” I enjoyed a beautifully peaceful ride and arrived at Penn Station rejuvenated and more ready than ever to use my influencing skills to hail that elusive taxi.

3) Go within Yourself

• Exercise. Get up and move around. Quiet time doesn’t have to be sedentary time. In fact, exercise is an essential component of many people’s quiet time. Josh, a 30-something operations manager at a Fortune 100 company and introverted father of three seems to handle his many responsibilities with ease. Where does he get the energy to influence in all the ways that he does? Josh said that he squeezes in a workout whenever he can. After those mini-breaks, he finds himself more focused. He says, “it’s kind of…resetting, recharging my battery.” His active version of quiet time provides some of the fuel for the influence he has demonstrated through bringing innovative programs to his organization’s business resource groups, writing Japanese language books for business people, and leading cross-cultural training programs to help improve communication with overseas call centers and even returning to graduate school.
• Keep a journal. Capture your thoughts, insights, dreams, joys, and worries in a notebook or on your computer. The process of writing brings clarity to your thinking and serves as a kind of meditation. Former salesperson and executive coach Vinay said that when he tries to force his thoughts, nothing happens. But when he enters his quiet time, ideas flow. As he humbly explained, “I don’t think I have the brains to come up with a lot of the stuff I write. Thoughts just come out of nowhere. And for me unless I write — until I write them down — they keep coming up over and over again. And the minute I can write them down, they are gone and then new thoughts surface in my mind.” As a former salesman and executive coach, Vinay is an advocate for introverts and challenges conventional thinking by writing encouraging words to the many introverts in his community. Likewise, writer Randy emphasizes the importance of having the right tools when he settles into quiet time. “When I want to be creative, it’s time for the classical music, a yellow pad and a fountain pen — not a ballpoint — sitting by the fireplace, and I just sketch things out. Something about the smell of good ink,” he muses.
• Don’t forget to breathe. Shake out the kinks in your body, take a good stretch, and focus on your breath. Consider counting to yourself, “1, 2, 3” on each inhale and exhale. You will become more aware of your breathing and inevitably ease into quiet time. Purposeful breathing also helps you stay in the present moment. You forget about what happened yesterday and what waits for you tomorrow. With conscious breath, you are able to stay focused on your best and deepest thinking.
• Take Naps. Find an appropriate time and place to take a daytime doze. Many successful influencers swear by power naps because their subconscious works best during sleep. David, a software executive explains it this way, “I am considered an introvert and I am transitioning to a leadership role. My position requires a lot of public speaking, training, and facilitating meetings. Often, I will withdraw after long meetings or training sessions. I take two-hour naps to recharge.” 

Jennifer B. Kahnweiler, Ph.D., Certified Speaking Professional, is one of the top global leadership speakers. She helps organizations harness the power of introverts. Jennifer is the author of The Introverted Leader, The Genius of Opposites and Quiet Influence which have been translated into 17 languages. Reach out to Jennifer on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.