During the last weeks, I have been in a period where I was traveling a lot, had lots of things scheduled during the weekends and had to be in office more than usual. The result was that outside of sleeping and a quick workout, I had very little time for myself. I don’t do well when that happens as I have built up a set of habits around journaling, meditation and sports that give me the bandwidth to reflect on myself, my goals, ambitions, plans and desires. I realized that many people live the busy way. Between a job, children, spouse, hobbies, friends and family, very little free time is left. I know of people that intentionally organize their lives that way as they don’t want to spend time alone, in solitude, by themselves because they don’t like what they experience when they do. Socrates already warned us of the barrenness of a busy life. Our culture values busyness. Our managers reward us for looking busy as it is used as a proxy for productivity. But I think we have it completely wrong. I do my best work when I have time to think and reflect. I have creative breakthroughs when I allow my subconsciousness to marinate for a long time in a problem that I am trying to solve. For me, busyness is the opposite of being productive. So, as a reflection: do you get enough time in solitude and for yourself? And if not, how do you create more of that in your life?