When Do You Do Your Best Thinking?

My topic for today is comparatively random to what I normally write about for Anxiety, but I felt I needed to ask. And I wanted to be a little random, throw a curve ball out there. Mostly because I came across this quote and it sparked something:

“The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” –Agatha Christie

Needless to say, Christie and I exist(ed) in vastly different eras. I don’t HAVE to do the dishes, which is good because I really don’t like to. Yes, I do them when required, don’t worry. And my days aren’t filled with an endless list of domestic duties. I have housework, everyone does, but I devote a minimal amount of time to it because life’s too short. Long story short: let’s not analyse that quote through a feminist lens. We can do that another day!

I want you to think about the repetitive tasks you do throughout the day/week/month while I ask: when do you do your best thinking? Even: when do you do your worst thinking?

This may sound a bit strange but I do my best novel thinking while I’m in the shower. Heck, I do my all around best introspective thinking in the shower and during my bedtime routine -I am an evening showerer, by the way. I’m able to let my mind wander from the moment I shut the bathroom door to the time I hit the sheets because every single task I do requires zero thought on my part. It’s muscle memory and automaton reaction. Literally, every single novel idea I’ve ever had has come to me at night. There’s been times where I’ve crawled out of bed and over to my desk to jot ideas down before they’re lost.

And people think I can just change into a morning person. I don’t think so.

The place I do my worst thinking is probably while I’m exercising. I am no Haruki Murakami. I do my best not to think about anything but the beat of the music while I work out, otherwise it feels like a series of endless tasks.

That’s my thinking process in a nutshell. Now I want to know how the rest of the writers and non-writers out there work!

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