Think Week

“I live my life a quarter mile at a time” — Vin Diesel’s famous quote from the movie “Fast and the Furious”.

In this modern world I think a lot of us have modeled our life on this quote. Yes, it’s true we live in a super fast-paced life and we need to do everything we can to keep pace with it. From schooling to work life, from home to office, from family outings to vacations, in everything we do we try to be as fast as possible. And which is not a wrong thing to do in this jet-paced life.

However, at periodic intervals we also need to pause and reflect on what we are doing and why we are doing what we are doing, where we have reached so far and where we want to go. It is a reflection of past and achieving clarity of the future. It’s a rendezvous with our self.

We cannot achieve this at home or at work and we need a getaway to get into the zone, away from the buzz of the urban life, away from the gadgets and preferably in a remote location such as a small town or a hill station. The idea is to be close to mother-nature disarming all the modern-day lifestyle, electronic gadgets, wi-fi and constant feeds/posts.

Though this is best done alone in solitude but it can also be done with like-minded people. This has brought a new concept to the table. It’s called the “Think Week”. During this week we are either in isolation completely with our self or with a small group of like-minded people.

“Think Week” has been made famous by Bill Gates which he takes up twice a year to brainstorm the progress of Microsoft and other macro issues such as “Global Health Issues” and “Emerging Tech Trends”.

However, it’s not just a getaway without any agenda. In a fact we have to brainstorm on what should be the agenda or theme of the “Think Week” way ahead of actually packing our bags. The resultant topics should be listed down. Any resources required to study or referred must be carried along with us. The exit criteria of this exercise should be clearly stated.

Few examples of a good Agenda are:

• I want to understand three emerging trends in the field of technology in next 5 years which I can pick-up now and be ahead of the curve
• What alternate or sub-ordinate career can I pursue with what talents & personality I have?
• What hobbies should I purse over the weekends to enrich my life?

If we cannot afford a week then we may reduce the duration but at least a duration of 48 hours is required to actually achieve something concrete.

It’s always best to carry few good books with us but avoid any tablets. E-Reader might be an exception if it’s only an E-Reader and not a Tablet with multi-functionalities which has seeds of distraction.

It’s best we eliminate the daily worries such as food, beverages and cleanliness from those days. Bill Gates can afford a personal cook and butler. Most of us probably can’t. So choose a good hotel or resort where these needs are well met with 24 hours on-call service. Or we can choose an Airbnb in a location where there are good restaurants and convenience stores.

All-in-all this exercise will give our brain a much needed vacation from the daily chaos and would allow us to put our life into a perspective.

“Life is more like a Marathon and less like Sprinting and so we need to pause and regroup ourselves at regular intervals to reassess the situation”.