Spending time alone is really, really important

If you are a big biography reader, you’ll find that most of the super successful entrepreneurs spent a massive amount of time alone when they were kids and young adults. And most of these people still spend a much larger percentage of their time alone today than most outsiders would think.

Especially when people are growing up, spending time alone gives one the space to explore, to be weird, to learn, to imagine, and to dream.

Reading is really (REALLY) important. 
Read a wide variety of books and articles that stretch your imagination. Don’t just read easy books (like Harry Potter). Read difficult texts that really stretch your mind.

Read fiction and non-fiction. Read wonderful novels written by authors from far-away lands. Read things that challenge your political thought. Read the Bible (New and Old Testament) and ancient mythology. And don’t just read conventional things assigned to you in school (like Hemingway, Shakespeare, Twain, and more) but try to seek out authors on your own.

Most people that are successful today (that grew up pre-Internet) spent a huge portion of their time just reading the encyclopedia. Ask almost any super successful person over 40 and they will tell you they spent gobs of time in the Library pouring through the encyclopedia. Many of them would eventually read every encyclopedia volume letter. These people had an insatiable need to learn new things. Today one can can do the same thing going down a Wikipedia wormhole.

When today’s successful people walked to class (in high school), they were probably reading a book or a magazine (in those days, it was a paper book). Some of these people even got injured walking into things because they were reading.

Most of these people had parents that asked them to READ LESS.

Today the encyclopedia is free and on the internet. But today the encyclopedia is so big that it would be impossible to read in a lifetime — so today choices about what you read could be a bit harder. But reading is still really important.

Play acting
At an early age, most of the super successful people spent more time play-acting than others. If you go through the top 100 tech entrepreneurs, very few of these people spent their time playing organized sports … they instead were in their bedroom, backyard, or nearby park playing by themselves (or with their siblings in the case of the Collisons). They were letting their imagination run wild.

They were imagining themselves as secret agents, slaying dragons, marshaling their toy soldiers to do battle, starting businesses, dealing with family situations, and more.

Experimenting
It is amazing how many successful people lit things on fire, blew things up, captured and studied bugs, built bird nests, and more. My guess is that every single one of the most successful people subjected themselves to multiple electric shocks (some on accident, some on purpose).

They were building, creating, viewing, and observing. And they were the ones in charge of the experiment — they were the prodders.

Lots of creative activities
While most of the super successful entrepreneurs are known for their right-brained prowess, most spent a very large percentage of their childhood and adolescence doing very creative things. They were writing short stories and plays, painting, sculpting, writing poems and lyrics, writing computer programs, and more.

Creating versus Consuming
Reading, watching wonderful movies, listening to music, etc. are all great ways to spend time. But they are passive — these are consuming functions.

Most of the super successful people spent a large percentage of their time creating vs. consuming. They were building things, starting things, etc. This is really important.

Today it is harder to spend time creating because there are so many more options to consume. In the pre-Internet days, one would get bored pretty quickly of the consuming options (usually the best option was to read a book or watch bad television) where today there are just so many more options. In fact, the tablet is essentially designed to maximize consumption (unlike the PC which is a better tool for creation).

Get away from the social pressures of school
School, especially middle school and high school, is socially incredibly high pressure for everyone. People are jockeying for position and cliques are forming and unwinding constantly. There is a “Game of Thrones” aspect to the social standing within high school that is ultra competitive and hard to escape.

By spending time alone, people get needed breaks from the high school Game of Thrones. Alone-time allows you to spend time actually exploring yourself (rather than spending time conforming to some sort of norm).

Today, alone-time is frowned upon
Something happened in the last 30 years to encourage parents to spend more time with their kids. Another huge trend has been for parents to give their kids opportunities by enrolling them in lots of sports, weekend classes, summer learning retreats, and more.

While there are so many good things about the trend of more involved parenting, one of the very important unintended consequences is that kids have significantly less alone-time than they once did. And even when they are alone, they have the means to be a part of of the larger group through social networks, SMS, and more. So it is harder for them to escape the social pressures of school.

So we should expect the best strategy for kids today to not be the same as the best strategy for past generations.

Summation: most everyone (young and old) — especially those that have good social lives and have been reasonably successful — could use more time alone and more time to themselves.

Note: this article is updated from the original: a 2016 post on Quora.