When you’re done with an application on your computer, you close it.
If you keep that program open as you open other ones, you’ll slowly start seeing a progressive lag in performance.
Especially if you leave a big program like Photoshop open.
The same is true for your mind.
Close applications before you move on to the next.
Wondering why your mind starts running wild right before bed?
Maybe it’s because you’re not confronting the problems your mind gets wild about while you’re awake.
Maybe you’re so distracted during the day—from the pings, beeps, bells, busyness, and notifications—that your mind conveniently forgets.
Until, finally, you turn the screens off, put your phone down, stop all conversation, and close your eyes to all of the incoming information of the world.
…Of course that’s when your mind all-of-a-sudden gets wild—it remembers. And it can finally start working its way through some of those damn open-ended problems.
Mental confrontation exhausts the mind—so sleep comes easier.
Mental avoidance simply delays the mental confrontation until it can no longer be avoided.
Which is, usually (and inconveniently), right before you sleep.
The people who work at Lexus aren’t more tired at the end of the day than those who work at Ford.
And neither are the people who work at Rolex versus the people who work at Fossil.
Creating a higher quality product isn’t about effort.
It’s the people who learn how to work smarter, not harder, that find ways to get ahead.
It’s the people who learn how to create the right systems, not try to do things with no system, that are able to facilitate faster growth.
Focusing merely on effort (of yourself and your team) is almost guaranteed to ensure that your quality problem will persist.
Focus on smarts and systems instead.
Generating ideas is not like emptying a reservoir.
You don’t tap into your idea source and then drain ideas until they’re all gone.
It works more like, well, a generator.
It requires mechanical energy in, but as a result, you get electrical energy out.
You expend energy getting into the right state, meeting up with the right people, organizing the tasks of your day, staring at enough blank screens, cataloguing through the other ideas of the world until—it happens.
Your mechanical energy is converted.
And you are no longer draining a reservoir, but rather are generating a type of electrical output that lights up your mind and charges your whole body.
The reality is, if you feel like you’re “out of ideas,” it isn’t because you’ve emptied what you had—what’s really happened is your generator needs to be looked at and fixed.
This might involve a change in how you optimize your state, changing who you spend your time with, organizing your tasks in more inspiring ways, being more patient with your process, forcing yourself to get more bored, or spending more time cataloguing other idea sources.
And if your generator isn’t broken, then, you simply need to put more mechanical energy in.
Your first priority each day should be doing that which improves your state.
Because the byproduct of an improved state is more of the same. It overflows from your being. It starts a positive upward spiraling loop. Your happiness increases their happiness, which increases yours even further, which increases theirs further and so on.
Influencing others becomes a joy, they find joy in influencing you, and it’s hardly a task.
If you start from a place of lack, discontent, and busyness—then, that too, will attract more of the same. It overflows from your being. It starts a negative downward spiraling loop. Your discontent increases their discontent, which increases yours further, which increases theirs further and so on.
Influencing others positively will become a chore because it will be in direct contradiction to your own state—and it’ll hardly be a joy for anyone involved.
Start each day with a conscious series of efforts designed to improve your state. Whether that’s exercise, meditation, reading, writing, walking—it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you identify what works for you and you prioritize it each morning in a non-negotiable way.
When you stop the intake of information you give your mind the space it needs to process the information it has already taken in.
Never stopping the influx of information is like continuing to open new tabs on new tabs on new tabs in your browser.
Soon, the clutter overwhelms the machine and everything gets throttled. And, resultantly, you get frustrated, angry, and/or upset.
Rather than getting emotional at your computer—try closing yourself off to all inputs.
Stop opening new tabs. Stop watching videos. Stop having conversations. Stop reading books and articles. Stop listening to podcasts. Just, stop it all.
At least for a period of time. And at least once a day.
Just, let it all—settle.
In more cases than not, what your mind needs isn’t more information; what it needs is more space to process the excessive information it has already consumed.
In short, what you need is to plan more nothing into your days.
The best way to beat a liar is to not be like one.
The best way to beat a cheater is to not be like one.
The best way to beat a bully is to not be like one.
For as soon as you act like one, you’ve become one.
And to have become one is to have joined forces with the opposing team.