AmiSight 4/27: CEO Scott Kirby's Secret Weapon? A 20-Minute Nap on the Office Floor

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has an unconventional but effective leadership habit: lying on his office floor and taking a 20-minute nap during the workday. Fortune wrote about a recent interview with McKinsey & Company, Kirby defended the practice simply, "If I take a 20-minute nap, I've accomplished more than anything else I would have accomplished in that time. When you're tired, your brain is not 100 percent. If you're not 100 percent, you shouldn't be making decisions." Science backs him up: a Harvard Medical School study found that power naps of 30 minutes or less boost alertness, improve mental clarity, and fight fatigue.

But the nap is just one piece of Kirby's personal operating model. The CEO of the $30.1 billion airline also caps his meetings at four hours a day and reads for about three hours daily, believing that curiosity and unstructured thinking time are just as critical as any boardroom decision. It's a refreshing reminder that protecting your energy and attention isn't laziness, it's strategy.

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