President Obama plans to keep a low-profile when he leaves office in January to better reflect on his time as president.

“I have to be quiet for a while. And I don’t mean politically, I mean internally. I have to still myself,” Obama said. “You have to get back in tune with your center and process what's happened before you make a bunch of good decisions.”

Obama spoke with CNN’s David Axlerod, a former senior adviser, in his “Axe Files” podcast in an exit interview published Monday.

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He said he will write a book about his time as president while he continues to live in Washington, D.C., as his younger daughter, Sasha, finishes high school.

He also told Axlerod that while meeting with his senior advisers recently, he started to grow sentimental about his time in the White House.

"I got through about four minutes of the thing and then started, you know, getting the hanky out," Obama said. "It feels like the band is breaking up a little bit."