Twenty Something Sense

Twenty Something life often is very busy and I rarely find myself sitting around with free time on my hands.  Each week is filled end-to-end with work, hobbies, friends and family – at times it can all become a little hectic.  The only time during the week that everything stops spinning around me and life comes to a pause is at night while I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

Lying in bed at night is probably my favorite time of the day.  Not only is it physically relaxing for my body after a long day, but it allows my mind to relax and think through things that my brain doesn’t have the focus for during the day.  I’m generally able to have deeper thoughts and I can reflect on how things are going in my life and come up with actions to address anything that I feel is currently problematic.

To help capture all of these great bedtime thoughts, I permanently keep a notepad and pen on the nightstand next to my bed so that I can jot down anything that comes to mind as I’m laying there.  The lights are off and I am just trying to fall asleep like any normal person is, but if something important comes to mind than I roll over and scribble a note in my notepad.  I’ve found this to be extremely helpful for two reasons:

• If I think of something important that I need to do in the morning and I don’t write it down, I struggle to fall asleep because I’m so worried that I will forget the thought.  Writing it down allows me to forget about it and focus on sleeping.
• Many things that I think about at night I would forget about if I did not write them down.  Keeping them in a notebook allows me to revisit them in the morning and make sure that I don’t lose any critical thoughts.

I find that keeping this notepad next to my bed is extremely helpful for me and I’m curious if others do the same or if this is something unique that I do.  If you don’t do this today, try it out and I’m sure you will quickly see why I do this nightly.  Does anybody have anything they do to capture their thoughts throughout the day that they feel is worth sharing?  Perhaps you always keep a small notepad and pen in your pocket, or you text/email yourself random thoughts that come to mind as your riding the train into work.  What do you do?