Leading

Think Weeks

Published on Apr 14

I block one full week every quarter and cancel almost everything.

No 1:1s. No syncs. No standups. A typical week for me used to mean 25–30 meetings. A Think Week means fewer than five. I've been scheduling them a year in advance for a few years now, and I can say with confidence: they are the highest-leverage thing I do as a leader.

The idea came from a Bill Gates documentary — he disappears to a remote cabin twice a year with nothing but a stack of papers to read and think. I don't have a cabin, but the principle scales down just fine.

What actually happens during that week is hard to describe. Some of it is reading. Some of it is writing. A lot of it is sitting with questions I haven't had the space to think through properly. What's working and what isn't. What I believe about the future and why. What I keep postponing that matters most.

The best description I've found comes from an essay called "Solitude and Leadership": thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not consuming other people's ideas. Developing your own. You simply can't do that in 20-second bursts between Slack notifications.

For most founders and leaders, the calendar is the enemy of thought. The week fills up with other people's agendas, and the thinking — the real thinking — gets perpetually deferred. I did this for years before I got intentional about it.

If you've never given yourself permission to schedule a week with almost nothing on it, I'd encourage you to try it. Plan for it, communicate it to your team, and protect it ruthlessly. The ideas waiting on the other side of the quiet are worth it.