Building Your Summer Reading List: A Busy Season Distraction
By Jeremy Clopton
Busy season has a way of narrowing our field of vision.
When deadlines pile up and client demands intensify, anything that is not directly billable can start to feel irresponsible. Reading. Listening to a podcast. Watching a talk. Those things quietly slide into the category of “nice, but not now.”
And yet, that mindset may be working against us.
Continuous learning often falls off during busy season, not because leaders don’t value it, but because of a perception that anything non-billable is a distraction. The irony is that learning is one of the most effective ways to improve performance during demanding seasons. It sharpens thinking, restores energy, and helps us show up better for our clients and teams.
Learning is not time away from the work. It is part of the work.
When you step away from peak cognitive output, even briefly, something important happens. Your mind gets a chance to reset. According to the American Psychological Association, even short breaks during the workday improve attention, reduce mental fatigue, and prevent burnout over time. You interrupt the energy drain that comes from hours of focused execution. You expose yourself to new ideas and ways of thinking, reducing the monotony that naturally creeps in with repetitive tasks. And, just as importantly, you reconnect with something that brings a sense of enjoyment or curiosity, which is often in short supply during busy season.
That combination matters more than we sometimes realize.
One of the most helpful reframes I encourage leaders to make is this: intentional learning is not an indulgence, it is a performance strategy. When you schedule time for it, even in small doses, it stops feeling like a guilty pleasure and starts feeling like work that serves a purpose.
The key is rhythm.
Rather than waiting for a quiet season that never quite arrives, build learning into your daily or weekly routine. My personal preference is mid-day. That window is often when energy dips and focus starts to fade. A short learning break at that point does not derail productivity, it restores it.
This doesn’t require large blocks of time. In fact, it works best when it’s small and realistic. Fifteen to thirty minutes. One chapter of a book. A single TED Talk. A short podcast while you take a walk. The goal is not volume. The goal is intentional interruption and renewal.
I understand the pushback. There are days when exhaustion is real and the idea of adding anything feels overwhelming. I experience that too. What I have learned, though, is that skipping learning altogether often accelerates burnout rather than preventing it. When I abandon those pauses consistently, my energy drops faster and my thinking becomes narrower. When I protect them, even imperfectly, my clarity and stamina improve.
Busy season is exactly when leaders need broader perspective, not a narrower one.
This brings us to summer.
While summer is often seen as a slower season, it’s also an opportunity. It’s a chance to be more intentional about what you want to absorb, explore, and enjoy. That starts with a simple question: what do I want to learn this summer, and why?
Some content should stretch you professionally. Something that helps you think differently about leadership, client experience, growth, or strategy. Some content should recharge you. Something you genuinely enjoy reading or listening to, without an agenda attached. And some content might simply be something you have been curious about for years, but never made time to explore.
The most important step is planning now. Decide what you want to engage with before summer arrives. When the list already exists, you are far more likely to follow through.
This month I’m sharing book recommendations from others across the industry to help spark ideas. Use them as inspiration, not obligation. Choose what fits your season and your energy.
Continuous learning doesn’t require perfection. It requires permission. Permission to see learning as part of your job. Permission to protect small moments of renewal. And permission to believe that investing in yourself, even during busy times, ultimately improves the work you deliver.
As the American Psychological Association concludes in its research on recovery, breaks are not a luxury, but “essential to maintaining performance and preventing burnout.”
That is not a distraction. It is a leadership decision.
