Forest Time
Schedule intentional monthly time to leave the trees and survey the forest — because good aim precedes huge investment.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
A deliberate practice for operators trapped in the 'fog of war': block intentional time each week or month to elevate from the problem-in-front-of-you (the trees) to a bird's-eye view of the whole landscape (the forest), so you can spot alternate paths out of your current problems. Because product aim precedes millions of dollars of build investment, improving your aim through Forest Time has outsized leverage. Udezue makes it a structured worksheet exercise and extends it to his whole executive team.
Origin
Coined by Oji Udezue in a post he wrote, distinguishing his outside advisor's bird's-eye perspective from the operator's ground-level fog of war; he published a workflow document/worksheet to guide the elevation.
Core principles
- 01Operating puts you in a fog of war where you only ever see the tree in front of you
- 02You need intentional time to see the forest and find alternate paths
- 03Elevation must be scheduled and structured, not left to chance
- 04Aim is the precursor to a huge amount of investment — improve aim, not effort
- 05It's not working harder, it's working smarter — seeing more options than you currently see
How to run it
- 1
Recognize the fog of war
Accept that as an operator, day-to-day intensity keeps you staring at the immediate problem with no attention left for the bird's-eye view.
- 2
Schedule intentional elevation time
Carve out dedicated time within the week or month — for Udezue's team, a full day or two at the end of a month — purely to survey the landscape.
Pro tip Make it recurring and protected; intentionality is the whole point.
Watch out Don't let it collapse into just taking a day off to play golf — the time must be spent on the survey.
- 3
Run the Forest-Time worksheet
Use a structured worksheet to name the current issues, enumerate alternative ways to solve them, and surface paths you're not currently seeing.
Pro tip Udezue published his worksheet document so teams can follow the same elevation steps.
- 4
Extend it to your whole leadership team
Give the same protected Forest Time to product, design, and engineering executives — everyone suffers the fog, especially PMs oscillating on the sine wave of discovery and execution.
Pro tip Aim for roughly 10% of time on aim and the rest on execution — if aim is off, you misspend one to two million dollars of people's time.
Watch out Managers may object to 'giving people a day off when they should be working harder' — the payoff is better aim and better long-run execution, not more hours.
In the wild
Once a month Udezue gives his executives a full day (or two) at month-end to step off execution and complete his Forest-Time worksheet — naming issues and alternative solution paths — rather than just taking time off.
→ Better aim across the leadership team, which compounds into better execution over the long run.
Udezue frames product development as ~10% aiming and ~90% executing/building. If the aim is off, that 90% represents one to two million dollars of people's time spent incorrectly.
→ Positions Forest Time as high-leverage: a small investment in aim protects an enormous downstream build investment.
Common mistakes
Never leaving the trees
Operators who never schedule elevation stay locked on the immediate problem, miss alternate paths, and become less effective over time through sheer attrition.
Confusing Forest Time with time off
Taking a day to play golf isn't Forest Time. Without the structured worksheet and intentional survey of the landscape, the elevation doesn't happen and aim doesn't improve.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders, product leaders, and executives buried in day-to-day operating who need to periodically reassess strategic direction.
Not ideal for
People still in pure discovery/advisory mode who already hold a bird's-eye view, or teams whose aim is already validated and just need to execute.
From the transcript
“Forest time is the idea that you make time within your week within your month to to see the forest for the trees”
“it is taking a day off um at the end of a month a full day or two days and instead of just playing golf…”
“we aim for maybe like 10 of the time and then we execute and build for the other side”
“your aim is the precursor to a huge amount of investment”
From the episode
Picking sharp problems, increasing virality, and unique product frameworks
Oji Udezue (Typeform, Twitter, Calendly, Atlassian)