Where Is Your Thinking Place?

Comment

In this life everyone seems to be too busy to think. We have so much going on with our lives that we forget to sit down and collect our thoughts.I find that giving yourself some time to think and collect your thoughts is important. It does not always have to be a place that you go to. You can have a thinking place by taking a walk, while you take a shower/bath, walking your dogs, etc. It does not always have to be the same place or thing. The following are the criteria that I follow for a thinking place.

• Go to a place where it is quiet. It does not always have to be at home. Our home is where most of our distractions are. (TV, kids, wife/gf, games, etc.) My thinking place has always been the public library or a coffee shop somewhere. It can be anywhere where you feel inspired and can mentally disconnect from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Here is a small list of places to go:
  1. The Gym
  2. Your Car
  3. Library
  4. Coffee shop
  5. Going For A Walk
  6. Book store
• Set a time limit. I usually set my time limit to an hour. We lead busy lives. Our thinking place is not to hide from everything, but a place to get inspired, think about our lives, recollect on the day, or just have a small morsel of time for ourselves. We can all try and spare an hour of our week. Give up watching TV or browsing the internet and you will free up an amazing amount of time.
• Turn off all distractions. We are too tied to our cell phones, PDA’s, Blackberry’s, Iphones, etc. Turn it off and disconnect from the world for an hour. This is your time and an hour is not going to hurt anyone trying to find you. That important text from your friend who is trying to invite you to a Jonas Brother’s concert can wait. This is your time. Don’t let anyone try and distract you.
• Write things down. Have a pen and paper ready at all times. I can count numerous times where I had a great topic to write about or an idea and forget to write it down. It can be frustrating to try and remember something when it is not written on paper. When you write things down, you can free your mind up for other thoughts and ideas to flow.

Going to your thinking place is essential to gaining some new insight and think of new ideas. We all have an hour to spend each week  to give to ourselves. For those that say you don’t have time, quit making excuses. You do have time. You are just too lazy to find it. Time is finite and we can never get back the time we waste. So do something productive with it.