Design your own Think Week
Here’s how I took a Think Week 💅
I wrote this sitting on a beach, coming to the end of my self-proclaimed ‘Think Week’. Taking a Think Week for yourself is a great indulgence, and if you have the time and funds you gotta do it.
I watched Netflix’s Bill Gates documentary. Now I don’t want to idolise Bill Gates, but he does have some good ideas. He goes on a Think Week twice a year and shuts himself in a cabin alone with books to think. I didn’t want to emulate BG’s Think Week. I wanted to create my own. I liked the idea of a meditation retreat or an artist residency, except I’m not an artist and I don’t meditate.
I designed my Think Week like this:
🎯Goals — set myself some goals
🌚Time and space — went somewhere away from home, where I didn’t know anyone
🥣 Routine — kept rough morning routine
❌ Distractions — limited my distractions
📓Recording — took photos and wrote my thoughts
😋Treats — made sure I had plenty treats
🎯Goals
I set myself a few rough goals. I wanted to read at least one book. I wanted to create a portfolio website. I wanted to relax. And to think about the year ahead and what I wanted to do with it.
This is the awesome thing about taking the time. I had whole days stretched out in front of me to work on ideas that I’d been thinking about for ages. I recently did the SuperHi learning to code course, but I was always stealing 2 hours in the evenings to get into it. Having dedicated time, no distractions it was so much easier to learn and produce something. I’d never built a mobile responsive website with multiple pages without any help like that. Sat there and coded it. Hours of uninterrupted time.
🌚 Time and space
I booked a little Airbnb in Southend on Sea. My dad remarked that ‘there isn’t much to do in Southend, you’ll do it all in a day’. That’s how I knew I’d picked the right place! I didn’t feel under pressure to get anything done like I would have at home. At home I would have just cleaned the flat and done loads of laundry. I only took 3 and a half days and that felt enough for me.
I wasn’t distracted by touristy things like I would have been elsewhere. Note to Londoners — Southend is an hour away from Liverpool Street and it has sea, arcade, chip shops and more. I love it.
Now the Airbnb I booked was a single room with a huge bed, a little kitchen and a bathroom with water too hot to shower. On the second night I saw a little mouse. The room smelt strange. Here I learned a key lesson — read the Airbnb reviews before you book. 🙈
🥣 Routine
Every morning I woke up between 7 and 8, went for a jog and then ate porridge. I also gave myself a single mindfulness card to think about each day, I’d had a pack of mindfulness cards on a shelf for ages and never used them. This got me up in the morning, and gave a little structure to my time. I saw things I never see. The sea covered in fog, the sun rising in the morning.
❌ Distractions
I didn’t use Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, Instagram the whole time. I turned my phone to black and white mode using the accessibility settings. I deleted personal email from my phone. The Airbnb had a huge TV so I unplugged it and hid the remote from myself. This is what made it feel different from a normal holiday. This made my attention span longer and allowed me to get deep into what I was doing. It allowed my mind to meander. I got this idea of limiting distractions from Cal Newport’s book: Digital Minimalism.
📓Recording
Photos and a diary. I took lots of photos and kept a diary. I thought a Think Week was kind of special and I wanted to make the most of it.
😋 Treats
Over the past year or so I’ve had trouble with irritable bowel syndrome. My doctor recommended the low-fodmap diet. You cut out foods that irritate IBS and then reintroduce them and monitor your symptoms. This coincided with me being away, it was good timing because I wasn’t going to any social events where I’d have to work out what I could eat. I made sure I still went out for coffee in cute cafes, found chocolate that I could eat. One evening I put a face mask on and listened to music.
On reflection, Think Week is like doing all the self help self care stuff you can think of all at once. It’s very nice. If you want to do some reflection, relax get something done without distraction go on a Think Week. Feed your creativity and imagination. It’s different to a holiday in that it’s a bit regimented, alone and with goals. Think about your goals and go from there.
🙌
Plenty others have written about their Think Weeks:
My First Think Week: Going Off The Grid for Exploration and Reflection (Steve Schlafman on Medium)
How to do a Think Week Like Bill Gates (Reservations.com)
No Time for a Think Week? Take Think Days Instead (jonathanvieker.com)
