The friction is so much lower when I don’t have to think of a topic before I start writing

The topic is “2024-01-04”. What do my fingers want to type right now, in this moment, without me needing to think about it

And that’s the funny thing

I always thought thinking was so important

Without my thoughts, who am I?

And now I’m realising that more often than not they’re doing more harm than good

Our thinking mind is a beautiful tool. But like any tool, it’s appropriate to reach for it when we need it to compete a task, and then put it away when we’re done with it.

Most of the time we’re not using it, it’s using us.

Maybe that’s why we take so much comfort in scrolling our phones and devices. We’re offloading that flawed way of using our minds and doing the same thing with the device instead: letting it use us instead of us deciding intentionally how we’d like to use it

I guess if I’m letting my fingers do the writing I can let them write anything they want.

The beautiful hummingbird that just went past on my patio

Colours. Oh colours. Poetry!

I’m still writing as if someone will be reading it - or at least that I should be careful what I say in case someone were to read it.

I did a bit of work on Smart Subscriber just now

Felt good. I enjoy working on it when I’m working on it, but I resist working on it when I’m not

This is a common theme for me

It’s been for as long as I can remember

My mum would despair that I’d be so reluctant to sit down and start a piece of work

I could resist it for hours, days, weeks

But as soon as I started I’d get that momentum and enjoy it and keep at it and produce something great

But I never seemed to learn from that

I resist because of the uncertainty, I guess

The useful practice for me will be to just start the action

I’ve written a lot about techniques for this:

• Lower the bar
• 10% longer
• Out of your comfort zone, into…
• A new tactic for self-doubt
• Everything is practice for something else
• Future me

This is a really flitty journalling today

Bouncing around different fragmented thoughts

That’s cool though - there are no rules!

Let’s see what else is in that brain of mine right now

My friend Francesca often jokes that she’d love to spend a day inside my brain, understanding how it works. The way it forms connections. Let me ask her why:

You are not normal. I mean that in a good way! You are not average. I think your brain is wired in a different way. And I think you’ve done enough introspection and work on yourself to enhance that even more. You’re not driven by gut and passion (which drives me absolutely nuts! - I’m impulsive, whereas you think things through from more angles than other people do).

I’ve never met anyone who does this type of exercise! Who asks their friends these kinds of questions and writes essays like this every day. You’re not the typical 30something year old.