You’ve Got to Drain the Swamp as You Slay the Alligators
by Kate White, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan and New York Times bestselling author

No, the title of this feature does not refer to a plan to turn the Everglades into a massive subdivision. It’s actually a nifty career strategy, and I swear I owe much of my success to it—not only in my work as a magazine editor but also in my other “career” as a book author. It's even helped me a ton in my personal life.

I learned about this strategy from a management guru when I was in my thirties and editing a business magazine for women. What the guy actually said was this: “It’s damn hard to drain the swamp when you’re up to your ass in alligators.” Translation: we can become so entrenched in our day-to-day duties and survival efforts (i.e. alligator slaying) that we don’t have the time or energy to tackle some of the other stuff (such as swamp draining), which might make all the difference in the world. What he didn’t say but implied was that no matter how hard it is, you have to find a way to do both. Success goes to those who not only make it through each day but also develop a long-term vision and a plan to bring it to fruition. Plus, once the swamp is drained, you won’t have to worry about those nasty alligators anymore.

The “gator” strategy certainly enabled me to make Cosmopolitan a bigger success than it had ever been before. Cosmo’s a magazine that must change constantly in order to meet the demands of a young, dynamic readership. You need to keep one eye always on the future, and yet that can be tricky. There are a huge number of pages in each issue of Cosmo, almost double what many other magazines run, and just getting the magazine out the door each month is a bear of a job—especially with a smaller staff than I had when I started. There are also Cosmo Books, Cosmopolitan.com and Cosmo Radio to contend with.

What I discovered was that the only way to ensure focusing on the future (aka the big picture) was to schedule time to do so. As soon as I started, I began blocking time out each week to comb through reader emails and analyze ratings. I also met regularly with editors to discuss new columns, new features, and new direction.  Sometimes I just went alone to a restaurant with a notepad and mulled over where the magazine should be headed. Sometimes I even indulged and doodled with a glass of good Bordeaux.

I know, I know. No matter what your job is, it’s tough to find the time to do this kind of thing when your ordinary day-to-day responsibilities are so demanding. So start with just thirty minutes a month. Mark it on your calendar and consider it sacred. Once you see how helpful this kind of strategizing is, you’ll find a way to do it more frequently. Just make certain it goes on the calendar. If you tell yourself that you’ll just grab the minutes when you can, it won’t happen.

And as I said earlier, the gator strategy is great for your personal life, too. It’s so easy to get caught up in the daily grind—carpooling, food shopping, grout-scrubbing, root canaling–- that you don’t focus on your dreams and how to make sure they’re going to come true. I had an especially hard time doing this when my kids were little. My life was so crazy then that I once described to my husband a fun night I had with our two-year-old son Hudson and he had to remind me his name was Hunter.

In hindsight, though, I wish I had taken a sliver of time each week to consider my personal big-picture goals. Once my kids were older, however, and I saw how well the strategy worked in the office, I made myself do it. I blocked out thirty minutes on the weekend to have a cup of coffee alone with nothing to do but think.

Just try it. Schedule time each week for planning, dreaming, and swamp draining. Is your life too crazy for words?  If yes, then what could you do to bring it a bit more under control? Are you making time to smell the flowers? If no, what can you ditch to allow for it? Is there an old dream you want to resurrect? If yes, what’s the first step you could take toward making it happen?

It was during one these coffee klatches with myself that I was reminded of one of my old dreams as a girl—to be Nancy Drew. Too late for that, so I did the next best thing: I started writing murder mysteries.

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