3 Rounds
Run 400 M
15 Pull ups (Mix of Beginner, Jumping and Assisted Pull ups okay)
15 Push ups
15 sit ups
15 squats
Then, without break:
Write 3 “Morning Pages.” Front side only, but fill three pages. Anything goes. Handwritten is best for eye tracking, but an online tool called 750words.com is also useful:
Clearing the Palate
When taste-testers are moving from item to item, they typically carry a glass of water to remove the residues from the last item they tasted. They also typically wait several minutes in between morsels, so as not to allow one sample to taint the next. The ‘rinse and spit’ method has great psychological benefit to your brain.
By the time you reach your workplace in the morning, your brain is likely already crammed with to-do-lists, virtual sticky notes, emotional reactions to the goings-on in your house that morning, wishes, anxiety, foreboding, joy…and they all try to organize themselves on top of one another. They fight for top-of-mind supremacy. “Don’t forget me!” “I’m most important….”
This jumble creates a memory logjam, right when we should be most creative. In some cultures, awakening means a slow rampup to work; in others, like ours, it means a scramble to try and recall all the stressors present from the night before.
To rid oneself of these, free up the mind (especially the right hemisphere,) and decrease emotional attachment, some like to start the day with a prayer. Some sing. Some busy themselves with an enjoyable task (they stop to fish.) Some, like me, write.
I use a tool called 750words.com to track how much I’m writing every day. I shoot for 3 pages – about 750 words – in the time-honoured tradition of ‘morning pages.’ I just write the stuff that’s on the top of my head, and on any given day, it can be checklists, forget-me-nots, emotions I’m feeling, or even reactions to others (the letters I’d never send.) It’s a powerful tool, and it primes me for activity, much the way stretching can get you ready to face the physical challenges of the day ahead.
Content doesn’t matter. Sentence structure, spelling, grammar…these are all secondary, and some would argue that they get in the way of true recount, and that they should be avoided; that there should be no ‘backspace’ on 750words.com. I don’t agree, because I want to keep my thoughts organized and clean, but I understand their point.
The system rewards compliance: complete 750 words for three days running, and you’ll get a little green flag that says, “Congratulations!”….after that, you’ll get a different one (you’ll have to see for yourself.) Your challenge: write 750 words, per day, every day, for one month.