It’s okay to make time for yourself
In the high-tempo life of a professional meeting planner, solitude can feel unattainable and maybe even a bit overindulgent. Yet for those same planners, intentional alone time is precisely what keeps decision-making sharp, creativity flowing and stress from tipping into burnout.
Imagine finishing a vendor call and instead of immediately diving into 30 unread emails, you close your laptop and walk down the block for seven minutes. That slight, deliberate pause allows your brain to reset, gives your emotions a moment to settle and often surfaces a better way to structure the next conversation. Dr. Robert J. Coplan, PhD, in his new book The Joy of Solitude: Reconnecting with Yourself in an Overconnected World, writes about how voluntary withdrawal from social demands restores cognitive energy and fuels creativity. Meeting planners can take that insight and put it into practice right away.
Start by scheduling solitude the same way you schedule meetings. Block two 15-minute gaps in your calendar each day to disconnect from screens and obligations. Treat these blocks as non-negotiable appointments with yourself and put an away message on chat tools if needed. When major decisions loom, carve out 30 minutes to sit alone with your notes and walk through options.
Read More: Mindful Moments for the Full Mind: The Power of Human Connection in a Disconnected World
Use this ritual to ask clarifying questions: What is the fundamental objective for this session, what could go wrong and what would make the attendee experience memorable? These structured moments of quiet give you breathing room to prioritize and reduce reactive choices made under pressure.
Where you take solitude matters. If you work in an office, book a quiet room, step into a nearby park or find an unused conference room to sit uninterrupted. If you are on site at a hotel or convention center, retreat to your vehicle for a brief respite or find a stairwell for five minutes of deep breathing. Nature amplifies the restorative effect, so when possible, choose a green space. Even short exposure to trees or water improves mood and attention, which translates into more precise planning and better vendor negotiations.
You can also bring your team into the practice. Model healthy boundaries by turning off notifications during your solitude windows and explaining the purpose to colleagues. Encourage people to try one digital sabbatical each week, perhaps a half-day when emails go unanswered except for true emergencies. When leaders normalize these habits, teams feel permission to slow down, which reduces mistakes and improves morale across the board.
There are practical experiments you can try. On Monday, put two 15-minute solitude blocks on your calendar. On Wednesday, take a 20-minute predecision solitude ritual before signing any contracts. On Friday, commit to a one-hour digital sabbatical and use the time to sketch out attendee journey maps by hand. Track how these interventions affect your clarity, creativity and stress at the end of each week. You may find, as Coplan suggests, that solitude is not wasted time but a catalyst for better work.
In a field defined by connection, meeting planners who learn to disconnect strategically gain a quiet competitive edge. By scheduling predictable solitude, choosing restorative locations, enacting pre-decision rituals and modeling these behaviors for their teams, planners can build resilience and produce richer attendee experiences.
Rochelle Torke, a Chopra-certified meditation instructor and founder of Now With Wonder, a Berkeley-based wellness consultancy, runs workshops for corporate clients.
“Taking even a few minutes to be mindfully alone is powerful medicine in our busy world,” says Torke.
“In solitude, we have more opportunities to tidy up all these threads of attention. We can release the subtle obligation to respond to everything, to adjust and compose ourselves to fit the roles we play. We can just be.”
She recently led a corporate mindfulness workshop for a stressed work team that had experienced a series of reorgs. “I don’t think any of them were waiting for a ‘meditative miracle’ that day, given the challenges they were facing,” she says.
Torke led the group through a simple 10-minute meditation. As the practice concluded, some eyes stayed shut longer. Finally, a first-time meditator said slowly, “I’ve never felt this relaxed in this building.”
You can find restorative solitude anywhere. You have to start looking.
This article appears in the March/April 2026 issue. You can subscribe to the magazine here.
