Every day, I start my morning pages the same way.
I write the location of where I am, followed by the word "and." Today that sounded like "I'm at speeder & earl's and I feel like I've learned so much this past year." That's a coffee shop I like, so it shows up in that sentence quite often. Other days, it could be some variation of "... and I'm tired" or "... and last night, Isobel and I went to the Moth."
You get the idea.
It came from a storytelling trick I picked up this year from Matthew Dicks, but it might just be the most effective productivity tool I've ever used. Much like in storytelling, it grounds me by establishing the setting. Then, the sheer act of finishing the sentence forces reflection and momentum at the same time.
This morning, while recounting some of what this last year taught me, I realized why starting my morning pages like that works so well for me—because I used to do a similar version of it as a guide. In my days of leading people through the mountains, I started each day by going through weather data and writing bleary-eyed avalanche forecasts.
They all started the same way—with a location followed by the word "and." Temperature, precipitation, wind speed and everything else would follow.
All of it carried by the velocity of a sentence.
When's the last time you failed to recognize something because it was in a new context?
onward.
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