Morning Pages: Empty Your Mind And Get On With Your Day

You wake up in the morning, hopefully not after hitting the snooze button and start your day. There’re a few minutes of fogginess and by the time we hit the shower, our mind starts to come alive. Running through what we have to do today, what we forgot to do yesterday and the way someone wronged us five years ago. Our mind, the terrible master, is up early and going wild.

For most people, the next ten hours of their day will be dominated by this terrible master. Their thoughts and worries will drag them through the day.

If you relate to this and you’ve had enough, there’s an effective solution. Morning Pages. This is a chance to empty your mind. To silence the never-ending chatter. It gives every worry and anxiety - founded or unfounded - it’s moment and lets you go on with the day.

What are Morning Pages?

Julia Cameron, who popularized the technique describes them as, “Three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning.” She has also accurately describes them as, “spiritual windshield wipers.”

That’s it. No rules. Whatever comes to mind, just write it down. It’s not for publication, you never have to reread it and you can throw them away each day if you’d like.

You don’t need to buy the book, I started out just using a legal pad. Now I prefer a blank word document and shoot for 500 words. Sometimes I use specific questions as prompts, but usually it’s just me writing out whatever is running through my head.

If you want to know a little more, I first discovered morning pages in a Tim Ferriss interview with Brian Koppelman, the writer of Showtimes’ Billions. Ferriss also has a good post on what his process looks like.  

A Few Prompts

Dickie Bush shared a twitter thread of solid prompts and I’ve added a few of them to my list. I don’t always use these, but sometimes they’re helpful.

  • How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want?
  • Did yesterday reflect who I want to be?
  • Am I living like someone who is aware that he is going to die?
  • What would I do to make today horrible?
  • What do I want?