Each morning, every morning, the first thing I do is start my coffee, go to my desk, pull out my Moleskine journal and my Mont Blanc pencil (2 items which I love to physically engage with!) and I write about two pages. (This is my variant on what Julia Cameron calls “Morning Pages”.)
This can take anywhere from 10-30 minutes. It’s mostly just a collection of random thoughts written quite quickly, and partly because of this speed, it is usually difficult for even me to read or understand by the next day.
So why do I do it?
Because invariably, during this writing blast, there will be at least one new idea that pops out, and when it does, I don’t slow down. Rather I pull out my red pen (also Mont Blanc), highlight it, and move on. Then, when I complete my pages, I review the highlighted idea and, if it still looks good, I put it in my digital to-do system ( in my case, called Omni-Focus) for further development.
For example, during my writing spree as seen in the photo above, I started to think about physician-writers—such as Chekov and John Locke—and thought to myself, wouldn’t this make a great category for my daily blog? Also, if I write 10-20 blog posts about physician writers, wouldn’t this also be the core of a great Kindle eBook (called “Physician Writers”, or “The Habits of Physician Writers”), letting me kill two birds with one stone?
Anyway, this idea has been captured and placed in my digital review system. It will get reviewed Sunday morning during my weekly review when it may get upgraded to a project or downgraded to my trash file.
But one thing is certain—because of my journaling, my red pen, and my capture system—it’s a creative idea that will get a fair hearing.
And when it does, who knows? Perhaps in a couple of weeks, my blog readers will learn all about John Locke, Pediatrician!