Morning pages on the road

For the past 7+ months, every day as soon as I get up, I sit down and I write/journal. I get all my thoughts out of my head onto a page. This allows me to quieten the noise of a busy mind, set a direction for the day and take some sort of control over my mood. I make sure I do this before I start the daily doom scroll on social media, so I'm not influenced by any external factors and choose my own attitude.

I find it especially enjoyable to do when we're on the road in the van. It's a great way to appreciate new surroundings and also compose myself for a day balancing work, travel and van admin. I also make a point of using it to try and practice some form of gratitude, something easily overlooked in our busy, aspirational lives where we tend to focus on what's next and not what we've achieved so far.

If you find yourself in your own head a lot, I'd really recommend trying it. Whilst I use it as a journal/personal development/productivity tool, many use it for creative writing practice too. The formal morning pages practice uses physical notebooks and encourages you write non-stop until you've filled three pages. I'm not as disciplined on the volume and lacking in the penmanship department, so use Notion to record it digitally and just create a new note each day which gives me a satisfying list of entries to look back on.

Ultimately, I think there's huge value in starting your day intentionally, I'd recommend morning pages as it works for me but whatever the technique, make it a conscious choice!