Jotting ideas the night before
Rough notes at bedtime, organized writing the next morning
Last thing at night you scribble a couple of sentences or a loose outline, and the shaping waits for the next morning. The support comes from research on creativity at low alertness, which finds that tired thinking runs less linear and throws up connections a sharp brain would edit away. Organizing still happens fresh. So the messy step and the tidy step land at different ends of the day. Night owls invert it and scribble in the morning.
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Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.
- Adam GrantDoes it
Organizational psychologist · Think Again
Research on creativity at low alertness made him reverse his order of work. Ideas go down on paper before bed, when thinking is fuzzier. The organizing waits for the morning, when he is fresh.
Source: The Tim Ferriss Show #399 transcript“And so now what I’ll do is at night before I go to bed when I know I want to write the next morning, I still like to write when I’m fresh so that it actually makes sense, but the night before, I’ll actually start jotting down some ideas.”
The Tim Ferriss Show #399 transcript (opens in a new tab) · 20 Dec 2019
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