Lateral Thinking in Day's Work and Life
The Employee Who Stopped Managing Time
Ordinary Situations. Unexpected Possibilities.
What if the answer to being overwhelmed is not better time management, but questioning the work itself?
1. The Story
Every evening, Arun looked at his unfinished work and promised himself that tomorrow would be different.
He had tried everything.
To-do lists. Calendar blocking. Productivity applications. Priority matrices. Even an AI assistant that organized his day into neat blocks of time.
His calendar had become beautifully organized.
His work had not.
One Monday morning, his manager asked why an important project was still unfinished.
His manager asked an unexpected question.
Arun looked puzzled.
At first, the question seemed ridiculous. How could anyone work without managing time?
But the question stayed with him.
That afternoon, Arun opened his calendar. This time, he did not try to reorganize it.
Instead, he asked a different question about every activity:
He discovered that he prepared a weekly report nobody discussed.
He attended a meeting where his only contribution was repeating information already available elsewhere.
He checked the same project updates across three different systems.
Each activity had once served a purpose. But nobody had recently questioned whether that purpose still justified the time being spent.
Arun realized that he was not merely managing work.
He was maintaining routines that had accumulated around the work.
With his manager's agreement, he replaced one meeting with a short written update, simplified the report and consolidated project information.
The following week, he did not work faster.
He simply had less unnecessary work to do.
And for the first time in months, he made meaningful progress on the project that mattered.
His breakthrough was not a better schedule.
It was a better question.
Back to Contents ↑2. The Invisible Assumption
Arun's original thinking rested on an assumption that is common in professional life:
This assumption is not necessarily wrong. Time management can be valuable.
But it becomes restrictive when we treat it as the only possible way to improve productivity.
It quietly assumes that every activity on the calendar deserves to remain there.
The employee then concentrates on fitting more activities into the day rather than questioning the activities.
Lateral thinking begins when we become willing to challenge the framework within which we are searching for solutions.
Back to Contents ↑3. The Provocation
Edward de Bono introduced the term PO as a signal that an idea is being used provocatively rather than as an ordinary assertion.
Consider this deliberately unreasonable proposition:
Taken literally, this would be impractical.
But a provocation does not need to be immediately practical.
Its purpose is to interrupt the familiar pattern of thinking and create a new direction for exploration.
If Arun cannot manage time, what else might he manage?
Workload? Outcomes? Expectations? Decisions? Dependencies? The need for activities themselves?
The provocation has opened several possibilities that the original question did not invite.
Back to Contents ↑4. The Lateral Movement
In de Bono's approach, movement means using a provocative idea to move toward new possibilities instead of immediately judging whether the idea is correct.
Arun moved through three questions:
Notice the difference.
The conventional approach tries to improve the performance of existing activities.
The lateral approach questions the structure of those activities.
Both approaches have value. They solve different kinds of problems.
Back to Contents ↑5. The Discovery
This is the central discovery of Arun's story.
Instead of asking how to complete every activity faster, he began examining which activities actually contributed to the intended outcome.
The result was not simply a more efficient employee.
It was a small redesign of how work was organized.
This does not mean that meetings, reports or schedules are inherently wasteful.
Some are essential for accountability, coordination, safety and compliance.
The useful question is whether the current method remains necessary and proportionate to its purpose.
Back to Contents ↑6. The Thinking Method Behind the Story
This fictional story is a contemporary application of ideas from Edward de Bono's work on lateral thinking.
Three elements are especially relevant.
Challenging assumptions
Instead of accepting the existing definition of the problem, we examine the assumptions that shape it.
Provocation
A deliberately unusual proposition interrupts the established thinking pattern.
Movement
Rather than rejecting the provocation as impractical, we explore what useful directions it suggests.
Once possibilities have been generated, ordinary evaluation becomes essential. A proposed change must still be tested against real constraints and consequences.
7. Try It Tomorrow: The 10-Minute Work Audit
You do not need a major organizational transformation to experiment with lateral thinking.
Begin with one recurring activity in your working day.
Your Five-Step Experiment
- Choose: Identify one activity that regularly consumes your time.
- Clarify: What outcome is this activity supposed to produce?
- Provoke: Imagine the activity could no longer be performed. What would happen?
- Move: Generate at least two alternative ways to achieve the intended outcome.
- Test: With appropriate agreement, try one safe, reversible change and observe the results.
Measure what matters
Do not measure only the minutes saved.
Also examine whether the required outcome was achieved, whether anyone else acquired additional work, and whether important information or accountability was lost.
A useful improvement should reduce unnecessary effort without quietly transferring its cost elsewhere.
Back to Contents ↑8. A Question to Take Away
Think of one activity you perform almost automatically every day.
You may have become very good at performing it.
But when did you last question its necessity?
Lateral thinking does not merely improve the existing answer.
Sometimes, it changes the question.
Join the conversation
What is one recurring activity in your day that you would redesign if you could question every assumption behind it?
Share your discovery in the comments.
Back to Contents ↑9. Methodological Sources
This series is inspired by Edward de Bono's work on deliberate creative thinking.
- Lateral Thinking: A Textbook of Creativity — challenging assumptions, generating alternatives and restructuring familiar patterns.
- Serious Creativity — deliberate provocation, movement and the development of new possibilities.
- PO: Beyond Yes and No — the role of PO in moving beyond immediate acceptance or rejection of an idea.
Editorial note: This is an original fictional case illustrating the application of established thinking methods. It is not presented as a documented workplace study or a quotation from Edward de Bono.
Back to Contents ↑
