Lawyer Marketing Should Involve "Critical Thinking Time"

As part of your lawyer and law firm marketing, do you make room for "critical thinking time?"  One of my mentors, Alex Mandossian, highly recommends that all marketers engage in "critical thinking time" on a weekly basis.  Critical thinking time involves taking an hour or half hour to be alone and simply think and strategize about a certain aspect or aspects of one's business.

For example, if you would like to increase your business development for lawyers through social or new media, you could devote 30 minutes or an hour to strategizing about how you will do so.  Alternatively, if you would like to join the burgeoning number of lawyers on Twitter who are successfully leveraging that microblogging service in their client development efforts, you could devote a "critical thinking time" session to that topic.

There are various ways for lawyers to engage in critical thinking time.  Sitting down with a legal pad and writing down 20 or 30 ideas about how to implement one strategy or achieve one goal can be effective.  For me, however, critical thinking time works best in front of my computer.  My preference is to take 40 minutes or so to strategize - in a document on my computer - about a certain goal or strategy that I would like to implement in my business.  The focus, direction, and inspiration that result from doing so are worth the effort.

As you begin 2009, I recommend that you consider implementing into your routine a weekly "critical thinking time" session.  Choose a day for your weekly session and start slowly by devoting 30 minutes per week.

Has anyone had success with this strategy or something similar?