Do more. Work faster. Push harder. Why do the results start slowing down if we only work under relentless pressure? We need moments of reflection to regroup, rethink, and refocus on our priorities and refresh our ways of working. Taking time out is essential to long-term success.

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Too often, taking time away is seen as an unaffordable luxury. Something that will only take away from critical working time. But when done correctly, time reflecting whether a few days or a just an hour or two, can make a major difference in our ability to persevere, think clearly, and clear the roadblocks to our priority goals.

Let's explore:

1. What do we mean by retreat?

Taking some time away from our most urgent tasks can mean a few minutes of reflection to start the day where we envision successfully moving through our tasks and engagements. Or, it can mean taking a walk around the block or out on a trail to create some quite time to think. And sometimes, we want to take a bit more time with more structure for thinking and planning. That's what I mean when I call for the importance of a retreat.

As Microsoft's leader, Bill Gates famously would block out a week every six months which he called his think weeks. He would collect through books and papers to read, reflect on the great challenges facing his business, and create action plans and mental models for moving his enterprise forward.

Others embrace meditation, quiet time, or vacations with family or friends to intentionally move the mind off the pressing problems of the day in oder to reflect more deeply and break out of cognitive cul-de-sacs that naturally develop when facing high pressure problems repeatedly.

• Our subconscious minds are powerful problem solving tools but must can't easily be pushed to deliver innovation without reflection time
• Time away means something different to each of us, but usually requires some calm, quiet thinking-focused time; leave the headphones off
• Each time period can pay dividends: whether a few minutes, hours, or days
• Our mental recharge output gets better with practice; we're trained to live distracted and the silence can be off-putting when first starting

2. Why are times of reflection essential?

As I've written many times before, the quality and quantity of our work output is mostly driven by our habits. We have very limited capacity to change without major mental effort, desire, and commitment.

Fresh thinking and innovative plans are much easier to identify and develop when we free ourselves from the daily pressures and existing work habits if only for a short period.

Everyday, we fill our subconscious mind with a massive amount of observed data. What we've seen, heard, and experienced is mostly just packed away. To make the most of those captured data, we need to allow for some time to think and reflect in a less pressured way.

• Our brains are surprisingly slow at processing information
• To maximize the power of thinking, we must reduce the immediate demands and distractions
• Great insights come from fresh combinations of ideas and that's a heavy mental lift requiring patience, time, and room to develop
• Thoughtful planning leads to more efficient ways of working

3. How can we use this different time for something useful?

The best way I've found to use time of reflection is on a scale that aligns to the length of time available and frequency we can block out those periods. For example, each morning or the previous evening, it's easy to carve out 5-10 minutes to think about the day, look at the calendar and to-do list and chart out the best way forward. How can you make the day go better and be more positive?

Once a week or several times a month, there's an opportunity to take a bit more time to reflect on my 12 week year plans, my progress towards my active goals, and any major initiatives.

One of my favorite ways to use times of reflection is to generate new writing topics and plan out research. I take several extended walks outside every week and use that quiet time out in nature to plan out my writing. I create far more content in my mind in that hour or two than I do when I'm sitting at my keyboard typing it out.

• Write your goals; reflect on them regularly
• Use periodic breaks to make your plans for the week and the quarter
• Use the time to create, to reflect on challenges, and for making action plans for solving your biggest challenges
• Use the mental space to be creative, reflect on the hardest challenges, or just focus on gratitude to recharge you enthusiasm for your priorities; reflect on the driving, motivating why for your work

4. How can we start?

The essential element is some time set aside from your usual work. Take a walk, take a drive, work from somewhere else. Reserve time on your calendar for something different.

Be intentional about trying new ways of thinking about your challenges and how you will complete your work.

• Make time consistently for reflection and planning
• From a few minutes each day to a few hours each week to a few days each year reserve time on your calendar for this essential effort
• Learn to be at peace in silence
• Leave room for your own mind to surprise you: turn off the distractions, but leave room for surprises–walking is perfect for this: requires only a minimum of mental energy, but leads you to a constantly shifting environment so you aren' bored

5. What can help?

Any reflection on the power of deeper thinking today would be missing a key element if I didn't include the potential power of AI for helping us here.

It may seem antithetical to bring up a computer tool as something that helps us disconnect and recharge, but there are powerful new tools (getting better week by week) that we can use to help extend our own thinking.

New reasoning AI models and even those GPT style LLMs that have been in the forefront of the news over the last two years all have something to offer us. In my case, that means creating a private, custom GPT informed by a large body of my writing for this newsletter and my daily posts on LinkedIn and X/Twitter. Now I can converse with a tool that's reasonably informed on my thinking to help me refine my fresh ideas and structure them in a way that's meaningful and useful to me.

These tools will allow us to upscale our information consumption without overwhelming us with distraction. It's an exciting time.

Action Summary

Breaks from our daily priorities and urgent demands are essential for finding new, better ideas to serve our goals. Create room for those experiences by reserving time to think freely.

• Set aside regular time for both structured and unstructured reflection
• Embrace some silence and get used to open-ended thinking again
• Return to written goals and regular planning updates if you've lapsed
• Embrace new tools to extend your thinking through AI

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What do you think? What kind of recharge experience has worked best for you? Reply to this email and let me know.

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To your success,

Christopher

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P.S. Like this one? You'll probably want to check out this earlier Wednesday Win essay on how to set and reach your goals like a pro, too.

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