Short talk by Mo Gawdat arguing that leaders should schedule dedicated "thinking time" (a daily thinking hour) rather than always seeking extra productive tasks. He supports this with a personal anecdote from his senior roles at Google X, Google, and Microsoft describing a calendar-marked thinking hour where he would sit with a notepad and reflect.
I think most of us, especially as leaders in work and business, we are so brainwashed by productivity that we think that more, you know, if I find an hour extra in the day, I should be doing more. When I used to be, you know, chief business officer of Google X or, you know, in my senior roles at Google or Microsoft and so on, I think that my most valuable hour of the day, which was in my calendar marked as my thinking hour where you would walk by my office or a meeting room. You know, Google X, all of our meeting rooms were made of glass. And so you would see me sit, sitting there not looking at my phone, not looking at a screen, not looking at an email, you know, or talking to anyone on the phone, just sitting there with a tiny little old, you know, style old school notepad and pencil. And that's where most of the magic happens.
