Remember when you were a kid and you had the sign on your bedroom door that said, “Keep Out,” or masking tape on the floor marking your side of the room? From the youngest age, it seems we’re wired to want to control our environment, protect our territory, and maintain privacy.

Offices used to offer plenty of privacy and were defined by walls and private offices. Status was based on moving up to the higher-floor corner office that had floor-to-ceiling windows. More recently, however, no matter what your status, the workplace has taken away much of the opportunity for privacy. In the worst cases, offices are like bullpens with nothing but rows of work surfaces. Some employees say they can’t find a place to take a private call—from the doctor, their child’s school, or for a work matter—unless they go to the bathroom or outside to their car. This could be funny if it weren’t true. Many office designs have overvalued collaboration, transparency, and openness and in so doing have gone too far and negated the opportunity for people to have a place to get away.

Work is fundamentally social, and plenty of work requires collaboration to accomplish results. Both extroverts and introverts need people and connections—though to greater and lesser degrees. But no matter what your style, you also need time that is private.

In 1890, Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis wrote “The Right to Privacy” for the Harvard Business Review and coined the term “the right to be left alone.” This concept communicates that what each of us does is nobody’s business but our own. It sets up appropriate social boundaries and implies freedom—freedom to choose what we do, what we share, and who has access to us or our information. Privacy in the workplace is perhaps more important today than ever because we’re also having debates about our information privacy. The scale of the data available today is overwhelming, and the documentary The Great Hack explains our personal data has exceeded oil in value.

Four reasons why we need private time at work

Privacy is important because it is required for ideas to gain traction, especially if they are new (or even subversive). Every new idea requires a quiet discussion between trusted colleagues before it goes before a larger group. The conversation on the down-low is what allows the idea to be developed and tested. The riskier the idea or the more it pushes the envelope of the current system, the more it requires confidential conversations to process and incubate.

Privacy is also required for creativity. Far from a process that always emphasizes brainstorming in big groups, creativity must also include quiet moments for reflection and focus. It is a process that flows between groups and individuals and between convergent and divergent thinking.

Privacy facilitates focus. In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport argues we need more focus. In a world marked by superficially scanning and skimming from one topic to the next, we must make room for profound thinking, reflection, attention, and concentration. These are best done with some privacy.