Everyone needs a room of their own to write, Virginia Woolf famously argued.

Today, the challenge is more about finding a place without any distractions.

Which is hard when the main disruption comes from the phones we carry.

And I cannot trust myself to not keep taking my phone out all day.

One solution I’ve stumbled upon is to go where my phone doesn’t work or I cannot possibly turn it on. There are two such places that are easily accessible and both have become — ironically — where I get some of my best thinking and writing done.

The first is in the car. I cannot scroll on my phone when I drive. So, assuming I am alone, I spend my time behind the wheel dictating text after text to myself. Each missive is an idea for a story or essay and sometimes several paragraphs of a draft.

The second is the subway. There is, I have found, no better place to write than on the New York City underground, particularly when it is crowded. The reason is simple: hemmed in by humanity, there is really not much else to do.

The one caveat is you have to have a seat. It doesn’t work standing up.

But once seated, you find yourself unable to do anything besides read a book or your phone.

The cellular signal, however, isn’t strong enough to scroll the web. It’s just intermittently strong enough to text or — in my case — write sentences in a Google doc that has been created in advance.

Typing with my thumbs, I am able to bang out paragraph after paragraph and usually complete a rough draft in the 30 or so minutes it takes to go from Harlem to Tribeca.

On those days when I’m going to a meeting in Brooklyn, I have almost an hour, enough time to finish the draft and make real strides on the edit. I can usually finish it on the ride home.

An unanticipated benefit of writing on the small screen is looking at the text in the same format it will likely be consumed, which makes it easier to assess length and paragraph breaks.

I’ve been surprised by how easy it is to cut and paste blocks of text and use spell check and bold and basically any other feature I previously assumed would require a laptop.

I started writing on the train out of necessity. I was forced to write on the train once when late to a meeting.

It turned out well, so I started to make it a practice.

I now look forward to long subway rides because they provide the ideal environment to write.

I’ve realized the most important “room” I need isn’t inside a building.

It’s a place free from the distractions.