I’m a medical doctor, best-selling author and behavior change expert. I write about success and self-development from a behavioural psychology perspective.

Apr 28, 2016

The Secret Weapon That You Can Use Right Now

Are You Doing Enough TT ?

This morning I read this article by BrianScudamore titled: “Why Successful People Spend 10 Hours a Week Just Thinking”.

As a strong believer in the idea of thinking time (TT), I enjoyed this article because it not only demonstrated the value of the practice, but also gave some good ideas for how to get more TT done.

We hear a lot about the value of taking action. And I certainly am not advocating putting off taking action.

But I know that many of my mistakes in life were because I didn’t think through what I was doing enough.

Similarly, I know that to produce a higher standard of writing, you need to do more thinking to ensure that you’re coming up with a better quality of ideas.

Part of my motivation for starting daily blogging was to ensure that I thought about things more, and committed to expressing those thoughts (hence they would have to have some structure and polish to them) every day.

But the flipside of this, is that the pressure of producing something every day, means that I feel like I have less time for doing TT. And this can only be a bad thing, because it will have negative effects on the quality of the ideas expressed.

Here are the things that I should be doing TT for:

1. My behavioral methodology

Expressing ideas in a simpler and easy to understand manner is an important practice for me.

As well, as assembling ideas into a framework.

This requires regular TT.

2. Ideas for the blog / writing

Spending time contemplating different topics is also important.

Even spending time in a bookstore, and browsing books in different sections to the ones I normally visit is a way of triggering new ideas.

3. My 10 Ideas a day

My practice of coming up with 10 ideas a day (from James Altucher) also has the potential to become a chore that I try and cross off the list as soon as possible, instead of devoting time to it.

I have been doing this for a couple of weeks so far, and I can see the real value is in going past the point of comfort when there is a lot of resistance, and the desire to just jot down an obvious idea. It’s worth persevering, and pushing your mind to come up with something totally different.

Without this, I fear that this practice would just become one of repetition rather than improvement.

4. Open-ended TT
Doing TT without any restrictions is very useful.

I feel the pressure to think about things that will have a payoff, but when you let your mind wander, it can actually end up coming up with solutions to problems, without you consciously focusing on them.

Overcoming the Resistance

The biggest challenge with doing TT is sitting down and doing TT.

This is because it feels like an indulgence. It feels like doing nothing. And therefore there will always be pressure to go and “do something” instead.

The fact is, no matter how good you get at doing TT, you will always be tempted to not do it. You will always be tempted to put it off till another day.

But you can’t afford to do it.

Your and my future is dependent on the quality of our thinking. And thinking doesn’t happen without effort. It doesn’t happen without making space for it to happen.

So, take some time now to plan when you’re going to do TT in the next few days:

1. Plan a time

2. Organize it for a place where you won’t be distracted.

3. Schedule it in and put a reminder in your phone.

4. Also schedule in a backup in case you are unable to keep the first appointment (but that should only be needed under the most extreme of circumstances)

5. Plan what you’re going to do during TT.

- Will it be open-ended TT?

- Will it be about a current problem you’re facing

- Will it be about a particular topic?

- Will it be related to planning for the future

- Or something else completely different.

6. At the end of the session, reflect on what you’ve done. Then give yourself a reward for sticking to the plan.

7. And before you enjoy the reward, schedule in the next TT session.

8. Remind yourself, TT is crucial to your future. Your quality of life in the years ahead will be directly related to how often you do TT now.

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I blog at Seven Insights