The Unlikely Benefits of Exhaustion (Bite sized Method)

In an ideal world, you only write when optimal.

You’re rested, inspired, free of stress and have a clear morning to get all your thoughts on the page.

We don’t live in an ideal world and that ideal isn’t all its cracked up to be.

The tired mind

The only way to get ahead in this subjective vocation is to turn up at the same time every day and work, regardless of how you feel.

Of course, be tactical on what you work on, but work all the same.

This will inevitably force you into writing sessions where you’re not all there. You might be hungover, overworked or distracted and you feel capable of producing only a fraction of your best work.

The key word to pay attention to here is “feel.”

In my years doing this, I’ve observed that feeling often has little to do with what turns up on the page.

More times than I could count, as I’ve stared at my screen through fuzzy eyes, yawned away my mind’s pleads to go back to bed, that tired, suboptimal mind has cut through all that static and fed me an idea that never would have occurred to me in a rested state.

Perhaps this is a product of being closer to a dream state, perhaps it’s a case a of pooling all your faculties into one concentrated stretch of focus? Perhaps it’s a case of varying the texture of your mental wallpaper a bit or perhaps its owing to the strained mind being forced to pare down all the options. Keep your focus on a narrow lane because that’s all you’re capable of processing right now.

Whatever the underlying cause, it’s a real thing.

So next time you “feel” uninspired, next time “logic” starts piping up and suggesting this time could be better spent elsewhere, “why don’t we wait till we’re a bit more inspired?”

Ignore it all.

Sit down. Write.

You might be surprised.