When excitement strikes, write it down.
It’s easy to go hour by hour throughout your day.
Day by day.
Week by week.
I hate when people tell me “how soon time flies.”
Time flies when we do not give attention to it.
When we go through the motions day-in and day-out, we are living life on a whim.
I have realized that every interaction I have has a broader take home.
One that can be applied to future interactions and decisions.
- Someone cuts you off in traffic – there’s not many reasons to drive recklessly
- Someone is running late for a meeting – how important it is to show up on-time
- Someone keeps talking about themselves – winning over a person is about making them feel good
- Someone takes hours to respond to your message – the importance of responsiveness
Etc.
When I have these interactions, I capture them.
Right on my phone. Notes. Within the ever expanding list of experiences.
But, obviously, not all these notes are meaningful.
But, by collecting each take home, I start to see repeating ideas. Ideas that persist.
Synthesizing these take homes helps me generate principles.
And, by analyzing principles across different interactions, I can test whether these principles stand.
Those principles then go on to guide the way that I live.
So, when my friends ask how I write so much without running out of thoughts? Simple.
You are living life. Right? So, we all have the same time and amount of experiences.
The difference? I capture them in a tangible source. They don’t.
We all have the same amount of experiences.
Bottom-line? Capture key interactions in the moment. Start week to week.
