A necessary break from the incessant emails, calls, DMs, tweets, whatsapps, hopping from IG to Facebook to LinkedIn back to Twitter. Our own metaverse of A.D.D. sampling of bite size information.
That was the appeal of a Bill Gates inspired Think Week. Watch the Netflix documentary ‘Inside Bill’s Brain’ for more insight or do a quick read here: How to do a Think Week like Bill Gates.
I’ve just returned from my 2nd annual one, very different to the first, but equally enriching.
Here is how I adapted the rules for myself:
1. Craft that out of office message hard so everyone understands. This was my one this year: “I AM ON MY ANNUAL THINK WEEK MON 8 – FRID 12 NOVEMBER, NO CELL COVERAGE, WIFI ONLY, CHECKING EMAIL 5-6PM ONLY. Google Bill Gates Think Week – a week of uninterrupted non-fiction reading about YOUR industry, trends & challenges so I can come back with deeper more creative thinking for you.”
2. Invoke airplane mode hard - you are your own worst enemy if you “just” keep your phone on silent ... allowing yourself to scroll, snack & get sucked back in.
3. I, like everyone, have battled to read & concentrate this year. But if you make a conscious decision to sit with something, the rhythm finds you.
4. Have a highlighter at hand - it brings you back to the page when your mind wanders & you want to start catastrophising.
5. And when you switch your phone on at 5pm every day: have your out of office message screenshot for easy forwarding. When I sent that with a “Hi I am on leave is there an emergency?” people were amazing.
6. You don’t have to go away. I did this year, I stayed at home last year. The truth is that a change of scenery happens from within: feed yourself with deep reading & thinking & where you are becomes irrelevant.
7. Of the eight books I devoured last year only one was a dud ...and they were all non fiction: Think Week is a non-fiction week. Not my favourite reading but now wholly converted. Of the eight, I love that three ended up being local, and that the Dutch & American (Alchemy of Us) books both had powerful South African stories in them.
Here are the 2020 books:
The 2021 Think Week has left me with a deeper understanding of politics, of our systems and of age old human conflict. I chose hard books, hard reading and hard lessons. I have no idea why, perhaps it’s the state of the world, and wanting to understand how we got here.
I have had some great mentors over the last few years that have patiently taught me just how our political system works. The campaigns of outrage and the marches of anger and the eruptions of violence get us nowhere, and that is why we don’t see change. I now understand that it is about policy and about laws, and influencing and impacting those. And it can be done. Much to my surprise a soft lobby campaign we did earlier this year resulted in a gazetted change to the law. Powerful things, powerful lessons. So before you rush off into your campaigns for 2022, I urge you to look at the laws, the policies and see what actually needs to change for change to happen. Then develop a strategic plan parallel to the creative campaign. Double whammy it. I’m telling you, it can be done.
You’ll see I cheated with some non-fiction this year … they were not gentle reads. But then nothing about 2021 has been has it? Hang in there.
These were my 2021 books: