Learn how to prioritize thinking. Take time to improve your approach to those most important pursuits and aspects of your life.
Taking time out to think matters. Why?
As Matt has discussed in recent podcasts, and his his upcoming book Undoing Urgency, we need to set up habits and systems in our life that help us actually spend time with the most important things in our life.
How do we spend time with these most important things?
Thinking helps ideas arise, whether they be things we need to stop, do better or different, or start.
How does one do this, though? How does one actually take time to think?
Matt has identified a few conditions that need to occur for him to think well, and then a few different environments where he tends to think well.
Matt things best after:
The first may seem obvious, but it is truly critical. You cannot think well if you are tired. For Matt, this occurs after a good night of sleep or nap.
Of course, Matt does not immediately wake up and start thinking, but rather after taking care of some quick tasks, making coffee, and clearing his head, he can think.
Critically, he eliminates urgent work. It is difficult to think about the important when urgent tasks are pressing on your mind.
Some of the best environments for him to think include the following:
Matt tends to have an initial brain dump when an idea arises, and he makes sure to take quick bulleted notes down (don’t worry about spelling, format, etc. just get the ideas down).
Later, when he has more time, he fleshes the ideas out.
On a long drive, following this method, he developed the idea for Barbell Logic Online Coaching.
Prioritize thinking!