Think week

Recently, I watched a documentary on Bill Gates called Inside Bill’s Brain. One of things that stuck with me was a concept that he calls - think weeks.

A think week is a week where Bill Gates completely isolates himself from the outside world and thinks. He goes to an isolated cabin somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. He takes many books with him. He has meals catered to him twice a day. Most importantly, he has an environment that has very few external triggers that take away his focus. This tactic has been important to him every since Microsoft. Apparently, some ideas like Internet Explorer flourished from one of these.

I am taking two days off this week to work on the Orlando Code Camp website. I am looking forward to spending a long chunk of uninterrupted time to work on re-designing the website. The Orlando Code Camp website serves at least 600 attendees yearly. It’s been the work of volunteers like me who put in some time here and there to make the event work. During two days, I will be able to put in a month’s worth of work that would have normally happened during nights and weekends.