Dan Morrell: Today's episode of Skydeck features alumni weighing in on where and when they do their best thinking. The podcast team collected these thoughts during Spring Reunions this year and several weeks later, as I sat down to think about this introduction, I wondered how I would answer that question. I was at my desk, and I turned away from my computer and I stared out my window, which overlooks a sprawling playground filled with skateboarders and pickup basketball players, and I realized I did that every time I really had to think about something. I push away from my desk and get away from my screen. Essentially, I'm sort of physically and mentally separating myself from my work.

That's one of the threads you'll hear in many of these responses, that people often have better ideas about their work when they're disconnected from it. Okay, hope you enjoy the show.

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Cedric Bobo: Cedric Bobo MBA Class of 2004. I do … after school drop off. I always find .. I have three sons. Whenever I drop them off, having not been raised with a dad in the house there's always something certainly pretty meaningful for me about drop off, then I'm exhausted and I go to little coffee shops and take 30 minutes of just sort of deep breathes and just sort of think about the sort of imprint I want to leave on the day. And so coffee shops are always fun people watching, but also great times to think and reflect.

Rich Alton: Rich Alton, section E class of 2009. So I work out of a home office, and I have five kids and so there's lots of noise around. So I do my best thinking whenever I put on my noise-canceling headphones, and my trick to doing good thinking is I set a timer where I'm just all I'm gonna do is I'm either gonna brainstorm, or I'm just gonna write, or I'm just gonna think about just one problem. So I put on the noise canceling headphones, set a timer, close the email app and just am able to focus in—just on that one thing.

Lindsay Ronga: Lindsay Ronga, class of 2009. I do, this is an easy one for me. Okay. I do my best thinking during yoga. It's a time when I quiet the mind, and I think a lot of other times my mind is constantly going with “How do I manage my three children, and my life, and the logistics, and the work, and the eating disorder coaching.” And when I'm doing yoga and I'm moving my body, I'm able to get out of my head and quiet the voices and the noise in my head, and that's the time where I'll have the most clarity about what needs to happen next.

Hem Suri: Hi I'm Hem Suri, class of 2009. Well, I think when I'm in solitude, so either when I'm running outside in the trails or beaches in San Diego that's where I live right now, or when I'm on the treadmill without any distractions of electronic media—just talking to myself.

Scott Kabat: Scott Kabat, 1999. I do my best thinking away from work. I think I usually have my revelations in the shower or out exercising. You know I live in the Bay area. I love to get out and run, and bike, and hike, and I think that those are kind of the real kind of head-clearing opportunities and yeah I have a lot of revelations in long showers. My wife isn't super happy about, you know my using up all the hot water but it's where I think. It's part of my process.

Shaan Kandawalla: Shaan Kandawalla, 2004. Probably late at night when the kids are in bed and everything from the day sort of wound down a bit, you know and you have that down time to kind of actually stop working and running and start thinking. So for me, I'm an entrepreneur and there's no real work hours per se. I'm also a mom so no real work hours but I do have that you know I can always plan for sort of alone time or thinking time around 9pm at night. So I’d say 9pm at night is probably the time.

Diane Escher: Diane Escher, 2009. I have become a morning person with children and everything else you gotta get up with the sun. So I would definitely say, in the morning with a cup of coffee in those fleeting moments of quiet. I do often also keep a pen and paper by the bed cause as I head to sleep, something's in my mind, get it on paper, so I can sleep.

Steve Papa: Steve Papa, 1999. So I fly a lot, globally, and it turns out my most creative thinking is typically after about 12 hours of jet lag and trying to get through in the morning and you just have the craziest ideas when you're waiting for some meeting. That's what I found reliably makes me think in new ways.

Wei Zhang: Wei Zhang, MBA 1999. So now I live in LA, but at the same time I also manage a team in China, so my work day is ... during the day I work U.S. time and then about 5 o'clock, China starts to kick in, and then I work the night shift in China hours. But then my best time is actually after 8:30pm after my son goes to sleep. I have this golden three, four hours that is just so uninterrupted. I was not at the office, I was not distracted, I was at home and I could just be by myself and when it's quiet at night even though people are sleeping but China is still busy and still happening. And then I just felt time was so well spent in the middle of the night to think to figure things out, so that's when I do my best thinking: In the middle of the night.

Jackie Burgos: Jackie Burgos, MBA 2014. Okay, so I love the ocean, and I live in New York and I think that's where I get the most clarity so I feel like I don't do a lot of great thinking, most of the time I'm living in New York, but I try to get to the beach as much as I can, because I just love how calming it is and how I kind of like really get out of my own head and I think that helps me do the best thinking.

Rick Atkin: Rick Atkin, 2009. What I noticed with me that happens when I see areas of almost collision and conflict, because I see this latent opportunity that latent opportunities or problems that could be solved. And I grew up in a small town and it's grown pretty dramatically since I was born from 20,000 people to 150,000 people and it's a beautiful area, and I see this kind of old school development happening, you know and these big box stores and people coming and buying huge city blocks and making these really kind of boring areas to hang out with. And so when I'm there, it's starting me to think about can I create some kind of quirky farm-to-table, like, shipping containers and restaurant incubator and something that's really unusual and very different there and so those areas of conflict help me start seeing, “Well there's this beautiful area that we're just kind of bulldozing and building all these mass stores on,” where I'm like “Is there a way to protect that beauty or even create some harmony between the buildings we build with the environment that we live in.” And so I think that's where I do my best thinking.

Skydeck is produced by the External Relations department at Harvard Business School and edited by Craig McDonald. It is available at iTunes or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. For more information or to find archived episodes, visit alumni.hbs.edu/skydeck.

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