How you spend the beginning of your day is important. If you start it without direction, it’s easy to waste time getting ready. To solve this problem, writer Shawn Blanc writes a note to himself and leaves it on his desk the night before.
At the end of the day, Blanc writes out what he wants to accomplish tomorrow on an index card and leaves it on his desk. For him, it’s a topic he wants to write about, but you can apply this to any job. Here’s why it works for him:
Writing down the topic that I’m going to write about tomorrow gives me a few advantages:
- It gives my subconscious a 12-hour head start. The well of my writing mind gets the whole night to fill itself up with what it wants to say on the topic. I don’t have to be anxious and keep it at the front of my mind, wasting my time and energy thinking about. Tomorrow is when I will write about it.
- Thus, when it comes time to write, I have all my energy at my disposal. When I sit down to write, I haven’t yet spent any of my willpower on trying to muster up an idea, or comb through a list of possibilities, or scour the internet looking for inspiration. It’s time to write and I am not desperate. Nor am I lost, dazed, or confused.I am clear. I know exactly what to write about because it’s there before me. All that’s left is for me to open up my writing program and to write.
“Here, Shawn, write about this,” I tell myself. And so I do.
It’s a little thing, but it can help you kick off your day with a sense of purpose.
The Note [Shawn Blanc]
Comments