Hello and welcome to the fourth day of the June 30 days writing challenge. If you want to know all the details about this specific challenge, have a look at the introductory post. In short, I will be posting every day a short tip, or technique, or opinion, something that you can call a "life hack". Feel free to join the challenge and post your own life hacks. I will do my best to upvote each day at full strength (about $3 at the current STEEM price) 3 posts tagged #challenge30days (leaving a link to your posts in the comments will also help).

Empty Your Mind Often - Unload Your Ideas

In the second day of this challenge, I briefly mentioned one of the productivity frameworks that really tocuhed me in my early days as a procrastination fighter: Getting Things Done. The life hack described in that post, the "2 minutes rule" was taken from GTD, but it's not the only one I borrowed from there.

There is another one, called "Mind Like Water".

Let me explain.

One of the major sources of stress in our lives is not the so called "outside world", but our own mind. The incessant back and forth between a regretful past and an anxious future is taking a huge toll on our clarity and mental well being. Stopping this continuous buzz of the mind is clearly outside of the scope of this article, and somehow I think it's a task spanning for more than a few lifetimes.

But there is something that can alleviate that. It's a small thing, but it's important. It's about ideas, and how to unload them from our minds, the very moment we're having them.

So, every time you have a great idea (about your next picnic, or your next blog post, or your next blockchain startup) just stop whatever you're doing and write that down. No questions, no excuses, just unload that thing off your mind.

Of course, you should have some sort of a setup in place for this, like always carrying a notepad or at least a smartphone, but even some pen and paper will do it. The thing is to take it out of your mind, in a system you can trust.

When I started to implement this habit - because, as you guessed, it's nothing more than a habit - I tested a few journaling applications on my iPhone, but eventually picked the simplest "Notes" app and then imported them in my blogging setup (that's another story).

Why is this working? Because, if you leave your ideas lingering around in your mind, a significant part of your focus will follow them. Even more, as your focus dilutes, you may lose those ideas for ever and get frustrated and feeling empty.

It's true that you can't control the moment when the next idea will hit you, but you can control what you do when it hits you. And, slowly, this reaction will spiral out in other areas of your life.

When presented with unexpected and challenging situations, you will tackle them in a more organized way. The habit of describing your ideas the moment you're having them will help in you describing and analyzing other events, more or less stressful, and will lower the chances to act on autopilot.

So, really curious to read about your life hack today. Leave a comment with a link to your post, if possible.

Previous Posts In The Challenge

• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Three: Intermittent Fasting
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day Two: The "2 Minutes" Time Management Rule
• June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks - Day One: Avoid Fighting With A Simple Visualization Technique
• Announcing The June 30 Days Writing Challenge - Life Hacks

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

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