Rereading your notebooks
Opening old notebooks to today's date in previous years, as a writing prompt
Keep the notebooks, then actually go back into them. The usual version is date-anchored: read what you wrote on this date a year ago, five years ago, ten. Stuck writers use it to generate prompts. Almost any old page turns up an unfinished thought. Pattern recognition is the second effect people report, noticing the same preoccupation come round every spring.
Who backs it
Sorted by strength of stance
- Austin KleonDoes it
Writer and artist · Steal Like an Artist
Stuck for a subject, he opens his old notebooks to today's date in earlier years, a studio routine he credits to reading Thoreau's journals. It usually turns up something worth a post, and he says it also shows him the cycles his own life runs on.
Source: AustinKleon.com: A good assistant to your future self
Aimed at the same thing
Other entries filed under productivity or focus.
- ProtocolFREE, no cost
Environment design
Change the room instead of relying on willpower
Backed by 7 of 62 stacks: 2 do it, 5 recommend it, 0 have discussed it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Time blocking
Give every hour of the workday a job before the day starts
Backed by 7 of 62 stacks: 5 do it, 2 recommend it, 0 have discussed it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Deep work blocks
Long, scheduled, distraction-free sessions on one cognitively hard task
Backed by 6 of 62 stacks: 5 do it, 1 recommend it, 0 have discussed it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Deliberate wandering
Unplanned, inefficient exploration kept on purpose as the counterweight to efficiency
Backed by 2 of 62 stacks: 0 do it, 2 recommend it, 0 have discussed it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Digital declutter
A 30-day break from optional tech, then reintroduce deliberately
Backed by 2 of 62 stacks: 0 do it, 2 recommend it, 0 have discussed it - ProtocolFREE, no cost
Hard thinking before lunch
Book the mentally demanding work for the morning and stop making big calls late in the day
Backed by 2 of 62 stacks: 2 do it, 0 recommend it, 0 have discussed it
Protocol entry · notes paraphrased from cited sources, quoted excerpts copied from the transcript they link to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.