A while back I announced on this blog that we were planning to move back to the city. I am happy to report that we have made a lot of progress on that and are now in contract to buy a place not far from the USV offices. When I mentioned this to a friend yesterday, he asked an interesting question: but how will you have time to think? My friend who lives in the city finds that the pace of life in New York makes it hard for him to take the time to think. There is always another event to go to, another party to attend, another startup to meet.
It is true that at least in theory the commute provides time to think as does maybe a slow weekend in the suburbs. But that’s not how it plays itself out in practice. At least not for me. On the weekends we were spending a ton of time driving our kids around. Once you get them to the right place you wind up talking to other parents unless you can figure out how to slink of into a corner and be anti-social.
So for me the answer has been the same in the suburbs that I expect it to be in the city: you have to make time to think. If you don’t schedule it on the calendar or have a ritual that helps you, time to think will be a casualty of all you other obligations. For me blogging is a ritual that forces time to think. The other is evening baths. Quite often when I am tempted to watch some TV in the evening, I opt for a longish bath instead.
Also collectively at USV we spend a fair bit of our time in Monday meetings and otherwise discussing not a single concrete transaction but rather a more abstract thesis. That too counts as time to think. In summary, I am pretty sure that I am set up to retain my time to think even once we have successfully made it back to the city. But I do see that in the city it will be that much easier for that time to fall away and so I may have to strengthen my rituals.
