Cal Newport

In fact, you're going there maybe like every day for a week.

Maybe you've done the walk route around the coffee shop before.

What's novel is being there so early.

What's novel is before like my kids are even up, I'm in the coffee shop with like the old person crowd early in the morning writing a journal.

I've never done that before.

That's where the novelty comes from that one.

The final benefit was distance from the present helps you reveal the future.

All of these knock you out of your normal routine.

Whether you're in the early morning sun walking with your coffee, which is what you don't normally do.

or you've taken the afternoon off, or you're in the novel city, or you're in Asheville, you've stepped out of things you normally do, which gives you a better chance of actually seeing the future.

All right, so depending on how much time you have available, there is some variation of pressing pause that you can actually do.

And there's a final question here that we have to address.

Every one of those scenarios, I just said pretty cursory, like, yeah, write in your journal.

What are you actually doing during these various pauses?

What questions are you answering?

What are you actually writing in your journal?

Well, let me tell you my suggestions.

This is what I'm doing here in Asheville.

Number one, you ask yourself, what parts of my life are going well?

Write those down.