I absolutely loved everything about this piece from Susan Cain in The New York Times on the importance of solitude in the creative process. If I were to describe how I feel in a paragraph, it might be pretty close to this:

[T]he most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this idea of solitude and being alone with your thoughts. I think this can mean taking time away from your team/collaborators to collect your thoughts or write and think, but I also think this means getting away from social media—closing Facebook and Twitter and getting away from blogs for a while. I’ve been doing this more recently and have found and have found it hugely helpful in my work and life.

Related: William Deresiewicz’s Solitude and Leadership