Medium Post: "This Ten-Minute Routine Will Increase Your Clarity and Creativity"

https://medium.com/the-mission/this-10-minute-routine-will-increase-your-clarity-and-creativity-7ce61b11c2f9#.adcy8poon

In this article by Benjamin Hardy, Hardy talks about how he is able to fine tune his ability to naturally cultivate ideas by becoming a more purposeful daily journalist. Because our bodies are always working and functioning, even when we are sleep, he says that we can maximize our creativity by meditating and journaling ten minutes before we go to sleep. By taking the last few moments of our day to clearly define our goals and "requests," we are getting our brains to think about things while we are sleeping. However, that is only the half the battle, and we must additionally complete the second half of the exercise. The key is to "thought-dump" within ten minutes of waking up. Rather than checking our phones as soon as we wake up, we should get out of bed and begin to write down all the things that come to mind when we start thinking about the goals from the night before. If done over and over again, with steady practice, Hardy promises that we should begin to see a difference in our ideas and our creative thinking.

What I found really interesting was the statistic that he gave regarding people checking their phones in the morning. He said that 80% of people ages 18-44 check their phones within 15 minutes of waking up. Regardless of whether it's to check notifications, the time, our surf social media, we are still ultimately beginning every day of our lives looking at a screen. While that fact alone is a bit unsettling, I think the more interesting point that Hardy makes is that these first few minutes of our day are prime for creative thinking. Our brains are generally the sharpest in the morning when we first wake up. If we can train our brains to work harder while we sleep, and then force ourselves to write and journal when we wake up, the potential for great ideas should be increased greatly. As I am getting more and more into journaling myself, I hope to use this technique in my day to day life with high expectations.