When we do our two-day annual planning session, how do we prevent the team from checking out due to physical and mental fatigue by the afternoon of the second day?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Mental fatigue is a natural form of resistance that sets in when we tackle hard, strategic work. To combat this, we structure the two-day session with deliberate strategic pauses.

We do not sit in a room for eight hours staring at slides. We break the days into high-focus blocks followed by brief recovery periods. This keeps the brain fresh and prevents the team from retreating into passive behavior.

We focus on hard, strategic thinking in the morning when energy is highest, and save the more administrative, operational discussions for later in the day. By managing the energy of the room, we ensure that your team remains highly engaged and committed to the planning process throughout the entire two-day session.