I know I’m doing great when I’m coming up with new articles
Recently, I took a step back from the busyness of rushing to work every morning, only to return back home and continue to hustle on my side projects. At times my days feel like a hamster wheel of never-ending progress, disappointment and varying degrees of success.
But within all of these morphing states of existence, I always tend to seek some kind of a balance… For most people this is a place, a habit or a routine they would naturally fall back into, manifesting itself as a signal that is not only way too easy to miss, but at times even far too difficult to recognise.
If you ask me, this comes from the noise of our daily work life we can’t seem to get away from. Every day we wake up, only to immediately stare at our phones and get lost within the never-ending exploration pages of social media networks. Every day we push ourselves way past our edge of burnout, only to end off yet another day with drenching our mind in the visual stimulus of movies, series and photos… Instead of living proactively with conscious introspection and solitude in our daily lives. And whereas I myself know how difficult it is to not only plan such a time into my day, let alone stick to it, I do know that all of us have a signal that tries to remind us of the mental sanity we are searching and ultimately hold a deep desire for.
For me, this signal is coming up with new article ideas. I never sit down and brainstorm what to write about, but I always keep track of the ideas that come to my mind in a Things3 project. Especially the ideas that I am immediately able to transfer into a working title, content and structure. I come up with these article ideas whenever I am inspired. I love writing. I love coming up with new things that pose questions, formulate adjacent answers and provide unique perspectives. I live for the creativity of life that is catalysed by solving problems with the frameworks and mental models I have acquired.
Whenever and wherever I feel inspired enough to come up with new ideas, the positive shift in my headspace inevitably impacts my professional progress exponentially, rather than simply being drowned in tasks and responsibilities.
I call all of this my Mental Probe, which acts as a reminder of how healthy my headspace truly is. It’s a measurement or a KPI of sorts that is solely meant for me to check up on myself. To either realise that I am writing down yet another article idea or notice that I haven‘t come up with anything in days or even weeks. As a result, I incite myself to make positive changes that allow for a continuous flow of new articles from a point of inspiration.
So, if you don‘t read or hear from me in weeks at a time, know that I am probably allowing myself to compromise the validity of this Mental Probe, which will eventually lead to low output of my own writing. And even more importantly – a bad headspace I am trying to get out of.
That‘s it for this one. I hope you enjoyed reading this short, but hopefully impactful article. What is your mental probe that allows you to keep the sanity of your headspace?
Until next time!
Cheers.
