I’m in the middle of reading Seth Godin’s book Linchpin, and Laura Vanderkam’s book 168 Hours.
Both have the same theme:
Don’t waste your time reacting. Spending your time acting.
The first thing I do in the morning, most of the time, as hard as I try to fight it, is to react. I open up my emails, I check Twitter, I check Instagram, and read blogs.
I’m taking in other people’s information.
But I really want – and encourage you to do the same – to do more acting. To wake up and either go straight outside for a walk (which makes for great thinking and inspiration, especially early in the morning), or to turn on my computer, leave the internet browser alone, and start up a new blog post, based on my initial thoughts for the day.
Untouched by other people’s thoughts.
Do you hear what I’m saying?
When we start the day reacting, we’re listening to what everyone else is doing, and often do things based on everyone else.
But when we start the day acting, we’re making our own choices, working on whatever the hell projects we want to work on, and if others want to react to us later in the day, then that’s even better.
I want to be more of a doer than someone who just peddles along, not questioning or thinking about the big picture.
And I want you to do the same.
So act. Don’t react. Start today.
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I really like this idea because I’m a slave to the internet. Usually when I wake-up, I spend at least five minutes in bed checking Facebook and twitter on my phone. But, while I’m in Europe, I trying really hard to focus on being less attached to technology and really focusing on being myself. It is amazing how many distractions there are though and how these distractions affect our mental processes. Great post! I’m going to try this!
It’s amazing, isnt’ it? How that just becomes our habit first thing? I love that you’re working on being less attached to technology while in Europe. Hope you’re having fun there!
Agree: brain functions best fresh off the pillow!
Isn’t it funny how that works? While I don’t always think of myself as a morning person, I definitely think there’s something to be said for getting things done when you brain is fresh.
I totally feel you on this. Over the past year or so I’ve really tried to be better about creating my own content before and/or more than ingesting the content of others. It’s so hard, because there is so much great content in the world. My prime creating time is first thing in the morning, but since I leave for work at 6:30 am the only day I can really make that work is Saturday (and heaven forbid I have other things to do during the weekend). Thank you for the excellent reminder.
Yeah, it’s so hard. But it always feel better to do our own work first. The one thing I notice when I write before reading? My own voice comes out much more naturally, instead of sounding like other people.
Hope you’re doing well, Emily!
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