And we rarely take the time to disconnect.

So I heard about this thing that Bill Gates thus that he calls a thinking week.

And it was a really short segment of a documentary about him on Netflix, where they essentially mentioned that he will sometimes take a thinking wait.

He removes himself from his normal surroundings and goes to a cabin and spends a week thinking he brings stacks of books and research papers on the topic that he wants to focus on.

And then he just allows himself to spend an entire week with 100% focus on this topic.

Needless to say, I was sold all right, so I just arrived at this cabin, and I can definitely see myself spending a few days here.

It's pretty much exactly what I imagined it to be when I first thought of this idea.

Lately, I've been very attracted to the idea of reducing my inputs were constantly getting input from everywhere, consciously or unconsciously, subconsciously.

I mean, when we get a moment to sit down.

We take our phones out when we're commuting to work.

We listen to podcasts.

When we're at work.

We sit in front of a computer screen.

When we go to the gym, this music in the background.

When we get home, we watch Netflix, and I don't think that that's all bad.

I personally genuinely enjoy taking out my phone at times to watch YouTube whenever I time for it.

And I do feel that does give me a break and some realization.

But I definitely think that there's something very beneficial about reducing your inputs at times.

For instance, I like to go for walks in nature without my phone, and that gives me a bit of a break from all the white noise that seems to constantly be on in the background.

So when I first heard of this idea of taking a thinking week, I was pretty much on board straight away because this sort of stuff, like going to a cabin in the middle of nowhere out in nature and just like sitting and reading and just pondering things is right up my alley.

So I started reading into this idea, but Maur.

And for me, the idea is to disconnect and drastically reduce your inputs for a week in order to focus on a singular idea or problem.

So then it just came down to what I should focus on for this week.

And for this first try, I wanted to focus on one thing that I've been wanting to do for a while, but I haven't taken the time to d'oh and that it's simply to read.

But I wanted it to be focused on a specific topic in order to get the most benefits out of this thinking week.

And so I chose to focus on learning about productivity.

So that was the topic of my thinking week.

I went on to research books that I thought would be helpful and some of these books I own but hadn't read yet and some I bought for this trip.

And then I brought all of them.

I didn't really want to run out of books while I was away, and that was definitely not an issue.

So I rented this cabin in Norway on Airbnb, and I wanted to find some place that was remote on with, like beautiful surroundings and the idea was that I could not only be inside and read in a beautiful environment, but I could also go outside and go for walks in this crazy, beautiful environment.

I didn't set any rules about not being allowed to look at my phone or anything like that.

I consciously tried to avoid my phone, but I wanted the whole experience to have kind of a laid back feel to it, where there's no set schedule and no strict rules.

So my rule was simply spend as much time as you can, reading and being without other inputs.

Also, this really responsive by blinking blink is isn't after takes the best insights, tips and tricks from thousands of different nonfiction books and condenses it down into 15 minutes.

They either read or listen to most of the books that we read we read in order to find the few key tools and takeaways that are in there that can help us.

And blink is essentially dust this for you.

So with the blink issue, get incredibly high information density.

I've come to use blankets daily anytime I'm commuting, when I'm at the gym or when I'm out for a walk.

I'll be listening to a book on Blink ist and I really like it.

I've used blankets in different ways.

I listen to books that I've read in the past in order to get reminded of the lessons that are in there and a great one.

Here is the magic of thinking big.

I've also used it for books where I needed the information fast.

If I'm working on a project and I find a book that can help, I use Blink is to get the lessons from that book quickly.

It's become a great tool for me, so I really cannot recommend this enough.

The 1st 100 people to click the link in the description will get one week of unlimited access completely free.

And you can, of course, cancel at any time.

You will also get 25% off a full membership.

So again, definitely sign up for this.

There's a link in the description, some really enjoying this, of course, but it's just really nice to be surrounded by nature and have, like, the nature sounds instead of the city sounds.

And I wouldn't say that I feel any crazy differences in terms of how much more learning or how much better my mind is able to focus or much more well rested on feeling.

I do feel like I sleep a little bit better, but that's probably just due to the fact that it gets darker here and there's less sounds at that.

I don't really feel any huge differences, but I am really enjoying the fact that I am here.

I'm able to take this time to focus on just one thing.

Just read essentially and reduce all the other inputs.

And in a sense, just like thinking about that makes me feel very, very good.

And I'm not sure if that good feeling lies in the actual act of doing these things or whether it lies in the thinking about the fact that I am here and I can do those things.

I don't know if that makes sense.

Maybe I'm getting cabin fever or something.

I think that the biggest benefit of this life, not only in being able to quickly steep in the learning curve on a certain topic, but also in the fact that you can take time to focus on one thing we rarely take time to focus on just one thing.

They're too many things we want to do and that means that we spend only parts of our time doing each thing.

And the goal of my thinking week was the direct opposite.

Spend all my time on one thing.

One thing that I've noticed that I don't think it's really obvious is the fact that I'm getting a more creative like yes, even though focused on a single topic.

I'm getting a lot of creative ideas on other areas as well, especially on walks.

And I think this is due to the fact of reducing when we reduce the inputs, we can start to listen to the voice in our heads again, which is one thing that I was also hoping to achieve with this week.

I find that with all the inputs, like TV podcast music, other people, it kind of muffles the voice in my head.

I sound a little bit schizophrenic, but what I mean is that even though we can still think even with music and our ears, I feel like I don't listen and when I take the time to reduce my inputs, I have nothing else to listen to, but the voice in my head.

And that's usually when the best ideas come, whether it be for a video I want to make or an app I wanna build or just something that I want to do.

And I think that is also why Bill Gates dust these thinking weeks to allow space for your mind to come up with new ideas.

So try taking a thinking week or weekend this year sometime.

You don't have to go to a cabin in Norway, and you don't necessarily even have to go away.

But take some time to disconnect and just focus on a single thing.

I really cannot recommend this enough, but that's it for this one.

I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope we'll see in the next one.