The hidden spots where top writers do their best work: in the pool, on the lawn mower, or while waiting for a bathroom

Photojournalists know the best camera is the one you have. In similar fashion, writers in today’s digital age know that the best place to write is wherever you can catch a moment quiet enough to hear your own thoughts.

Several of this year’s LinkedIn Top Voices shared a glimpse into the moments that allow them to unleash their minds and condense their ideas into paragraphs and arguments.

For many, the magic hour comes before dawn in the comfort of a home office, for others, the dull roar of an airplane drowns out typical distractions, and for some writing becomes the distraction from otherwise monotonous or painful tasks.

Dr. Louis Profeta: If only I had a bigger yard...

For Dr. Louis Profeta, an emergency room physician in Indianapolis, the hard work of writing a piece is usually done before he ever sits down to a computer.

“I actually do my best writing in my head while on my riding lawn mower,” he said. “I often imagine what I could do if I had a bigger yard.”

Profeta will sometimes stew over an idea for weeks, but when he sits down to write it, the words come in a rush. A popular post this year about death and end-of-life care — now read more than 1.3 million times — took him an hour and a half to commit to words. But Profeta’s revision process can take more time.

“I look at my writing like a dance,” he said. “It has to flow. I can’t explain how I developed that style. It has to have a smoothness, nice transitions.”

Bill McGowan: Ignore email for a moment. Those transcontinental flights can be great spots for longer writing.

When Bill McGowan sits on an airplane for a long coast-to-coast flight, the solitude frees him up to write about topics that have been brewing in his mind for weeks.

“Some of my ideas come from the stories in the news that people are talking about: Brian Williams, Elizabeth Holmes, etc.,” said McGowan, a former broadcast journalist and the founder and CEO of Clarity Media Group. “Others come from the communication pitfalls I notice people grappling with in my coaching sessions.”

Those quiet moments miles up in the air help McGowan keep a healthy mental balance as well.

“It's also much more enjoyable than digging out from the pile of emails in my inbox, which is what I do when not writing,” he said.

Duena Blomstrom: Shut off spellcheck. Don't think twice. Just sit in the office and publish.

Duena Blomstrom has a complicated relationship with her writing: it’s ever-changing, sometimes motivated by passion, sometimes by duty, and full of surprises. 

Most of her pieces grow out of topics she feels passionate about, which she pumps out in a pre-dawn trance in her loft home office.

“I get an idea followed by a burning need to make it into a piece and have to get it into words as a matter of absolute urgency,” she said.

Those pieces rarely get even a second glance or a spell-check before Blomstrom posts them. But recently, Blomstrom has also begun to relish the research process for a piece she is preparing for a publication she deeply respects.

“I wrote for them before and I was dismayed to see my first 'felt' drafts were edited and rejected a painful amount of times,” she said. “But the process was worth it in the end, so when they invited me this year, I accepted. I regard this unfinished article as my accidental early Christmas present to myself — I did more research than ever before, I am not even 30 percent done on the first draft and yet I LOVED every minute of it.”

Jody Padar: Stare down at the lap lane of a pool. See what happens.

Jody Padar uses writing as a way to distill, organize and work through things in her profession that don’t initially make sense. And one of her favorite places to do that is the swimming pool, or during a walk.

“Looking at a black line in a pool is the perfect place to let your mind wander and for unusual connections to take place,” said Padar, CEO and principal of New Vision CPA Group. “I would get out of the pool and write down everything that I had organized in my head.”

Once Padar started writing regularly, she submitted her blogs to an industry publication and gained an external editor and the expectation of regular postings, which required more exercise-induced brainstorming.

“The stuff I write about is disruptive to our industry; it’s a non-traditional approach and some might even say extreme or radical,” Padar said. “It is in that cardio space that my right brain connects with left brain and this non-traditional writer can be creative.”

Alec Ross: Waking up before dawn doesn't come naturally. But there's something magical about a dining room table at 4 a.m.

Alec Ross doesn’t think of himself as a morning person, but the author of the best-selling The Industries of the Future can’t escape the fact that the hours between 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. foster his best writing.

“The period of predawn and early morning tend to be when I am most focused, before my three kids and my wife wake up,” he said. “I will set the alarm for 4-something or 5-something in the morning and hammer away at my dining room table.”

Ross writes intensely, finishing most pieces in one or two sessions after weeks or months of intellectual gestation.

“I only look up to look out the window to my garden when the birds wake up with the sun,” he said.

Martin Lindstrom: Spend an hour in a pool. Then, rush to a notebook, wet hands and all.

Author Martin Lindstrom swims for about an hour every single day to preserve both his physical and mental agility.

“I’m convinced that boredom is the foundation for creativity, so every morning I make an appointment with myself to go swimming,” he said. “This is my time to get bored — and super creative, too.”

Lindstrom goes one step beyond brainstorming in the pool to actually recording his notes at each end of the pool during his workout.

“I must look like a maniac as I pick up all those wet pieces of paper,” he said. “Later on, back in my room, I have to dry them all out. But I know my writing well enough to be able to decode all those curious, barely readable, doctor-like notes.”

Sharon O’Dea: Those interminable bathroom lines at shows? Take advantage of them.

A “quiet place” may look a little different for Sharon O’Dea than for some of the other Top Voices. She’s written posts from a villa in Bali (pictured at top), a speeding bullet train in Japan, and while flying high over the Middle East.

O’Dea, digital engagement lead for the Department for International Trade in London, writes when inspiration strikes, which is never more obvious than when she drafted Seven Signs of the Social Media Snake-Oil Salesman on her smartphone while waiting in line for the bathroom at at the Hammersmith Apollo in London during a 25 Years of Reeves and Mortimer show.

“I'd seen a few examples of outrageous behavior that day so, while stuck in a queue, I got my phone out and started writing,” O’Dea said. “I asked my network what they thought, and a few days later added some of their quotes, tidied up the draft and published.”

Azeem Azhar: Writing can happen anywhere — just not in the office

Azeem Azhar writes in almost any place except his office during the workday.

“The urge to write comes at odd and unpredictable times,” said Azhar, vice president venture and foresight for Schibsted Media Group. “Sometimes noisy, sometimes quiet but rarely quotidien.”

Azhar disciplines himself to write a weekly newsletter, full of shorter pieces that make sense in context to his regular readers. But when inspiration strikes he often finds himself sharing longer pieces.

“If time allows I might leave a post to to brew and then return to it before publishing,” he said. “Sometimes I don't have that luxury, so I get it done there and then.”

Bill Boulding: Use those multi-hour international flights as writing labs. Just be prepared to do some heavy editing, too.

Bill Boulding, dean of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, takes advantage of the “white space” of a long flight to write out the thoughts he has organized during a previous running session.

“Creating the needed coherent structure around my ideas often happens when I’m running—I need to fully engage my brain to distract myself from the reality that my body is old, slow, and in pain!”

In his role at Duke, Boulding gets a lot of opportunities to write during international flights, but not every flight results in an essay worth sharing.

“To be totally honest, sometimes I’ve found a draft isn’t clear when it’s out of my head and on paper and I end up tossing it,” he said. “It’s important to me that I only publish when I think I have something new to add or can advance the conversation in some way.”

Jim Rossi: There's something special about a bike, an open trail and a notebook tucked in a hip pocket.

Traveling on two wheels, whether over flat pavement or flying down wooded hills, brings out the most creativity in Jim Rossi, a writer, entrepreneur, and grad student at the University of California at Berkeley.

“On a mountain bike or road bike — that’s where I do my best thinking, so I bring a small notebook in my hip pocket to jot stuff down,” Rossi said.

But when the semester comes to its chaotic close or work picks up, it can be hard to find time for a bike ride.

“At least I walk around a lot, from library to cafe to cafe, to clear my head and think things through,” Rossi said. “That being said, after three or four weeks of no biking — or at least golf — my creativity is dulled.”

Jane Hirt: Take advantage of those beautiful coffee shops. Just don't be a laptop squatter.

After a yearlong sabbatical following a successful journalism career, Jane Hirt began blogging on LinkedIn to share the insights she had carved out while reflecting on that year in one of her favorite coffee shops in the Chicago neighborhood of Andersonville. 

“My favorite Chicago cafes are La Colombe, TrueNorth and The Coffee Studio,” said Hirt, the former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune who is now a consultant in journalism, marketing and leadership. “I try to be a conscientious laptop squatter by buying something every hour or two and not overstaying my welcome.”

To stay motivated to post regularly, Hirt sets mental deadlines for writing, but she also gives herself the freedom to change those deadlines.

“Some days I'm a better writer than on other days, so I try to make the most of the days when my brain feels like writing,” she said. 

Bo Ren: Light a candle. Your next article awaits.

Bo Ren, a product manager at Tumblr, writes about diversity in tech, sharing stories of her own path breaking into the industry. "I start with a visceral feeling and try to break it down through introspection, dialog, and research," she says, adding data, facts and scientific studies to her narrative. She puts together the first drafts of her pieces in her New York apartment, before heading to a coffee shop to edit.

"I'm currently living alone for the first time in my Chelsea studio. Living alone has allowed me to deep think more and write more," she says. "I usually write with a candle burning and a Korean face mask on. No kidding."

She also finds inspiration in another part of her home: the bathtub.

"I obsessively read in the bathtub while listening to Sigur Rós," she says. "As a result, most of my issues of the The New Yorker and Economist are water stained."

You've read about where some of these top writers like to work. Now, catch up on their own writing — you can see the full LinkedIn Top Voices list here.