Leverage Your Groggy Brain
by Christine N. Lee
Is there a best time of the day for your strategy and writing sessions?
What’s fascinating is that neuroscience underpins the day’s first hour when your brain is groggy, to be the peak time for creative thought and strategy work - explicitly because the pre-frontal cortex is impaired. Just think, your groggy brain is your friend!
This is because of our brain anatomy: The prefrontal cortex is the brain’s boss and command center affecting our executive function and linear logic - and this boss is usually large and in charge.
But during the first hour, because the boss is out, we are able to think more creatively and laterally - and utilize our divergent or creative logic, where we are able to think outward and explore possibilities, and find new solutions to existing problems.
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Usually, our Linear and convergent logic holds that A leads to B, which leads to C, then leads to D - and we certainly must check off items on our to-do list to be productive at work. But tapping into our Creative and divergent logic is about finding shortcuts, redefining the premise, charting new territories and reframing solutions, altogether.
Our groggy brain at the first hour is fantastic at creative logic, which fuels our strategy work, big-picture thought, and writing synthesis - there is no writer’s block when your prefrontal cortex is down, imagine that! The groggy brain helps us capitalize on creative juices naturally flowing during that first hour. So don’t caffeinate it away - leverage your groggy brain, she is a true gift that supercharges your strategy sessions.
Further, our first-hour creative strategy session is also a way to give ourselves psychological safety to intellectually play and explore without needing every thought to be right - and after some time exploring new possibilities and new solutions to existing problems during that first hour, we can hone in and focus on one of the possibilities and use our convergent, linear logic to execute on that idea.
Because, let’s face it - later on in the day, you’d better be right - you can’t be exploring and making mistakes all day. But at that first hour of day, you can give yourself that psychological safety, space, and time to creatively play, explore, and utilize your divergent logic to expand your world of possibilities and strategize in new and powerful ways.
The higher we go up in organizations, the more important strategizing becomes to our work - there is a severe difference in impact of asking strategic, big-picture questions versus shying away from these impossible questions because they are too daunting. In fact, failing to ask the big questions can prevent you from navigating well at work and in life, and even handicap your leadership.
But the Creative First Hour is about asking big strategy questions and spending an hour working on them, then walking away to unlock what David Kadavvy calls your passive genius - where creative ideas will simmer in the back of your mind like the slow cooker, and reveal an answer after some time - maybe at your next creative first-hour session, next week, or while you’re out for a walk on the weekend, exercising or in the shower - the answer may come to you unexpectedly.
Creative simmer your strategies…
To unlock the power of your passive genius
But this isn’t random - the revelations come only because you bothered to ask the question in the first place and the idea had been simmering all along - and your passive genius was at work even when you weren’t. Asking the big questions and engaging in first-hour strategy sessions unlocks the passive genius in you.
Creative sessions are different from your linear logic check-off list, where things hang over you until the items are all checked off, like a weight on your shoulder that lifts only when you complete it. No, creative sessions are not like that at all - they’re about ongoing problem solving - and giving yourself that first hour to think expansively, using your divergent logic, ideating, writing - then walking away towards your to-do list items for the day, to simply reengage later at your next strategy session opportunity.
If you are not a naturally creative or strategic person, that first hour of the day may be the only time where you can engage in creative strategy sessions at all, before your prefrontal cortex wakes up and takes over.
If you are a creative person, you can maximize your creative output tenfold by engaging in your first hour sessions. As a musician, I have written entire songs with music and lyrics in one hour at my creative first-hour sessions, and I usually hate song writing. My work writing also flows out of me with ease at this hour as well. You can gather your sources in the afternoon but save the actual writing for that first hour - no writer’s block!
This has changed my life and the way that I work. And do you know who also utilizes the creative first hour strategy sessions for their work? Jeff Bezos spends his first hour drinking coffee to “putter around” and read the news, and intentionally stays off his phone. He says that having this time helps him make better strategic decisions.
Jensen Huang calls this time “Victory before 9am.” He decides on a strategy topic the night before, and spends his one hour of focused time in the morning on that topic to think creatively and strategically.
Elon Musk uses his one-hour focus time at the same time, same chair, using the same pen - he uses even these “atomic habits” to amplify his creative juices.
You don’t have to override your linear logical mindset - this is about augmenting it with a big-picture strategy by building a bridge between today’s problems and tomorrow' s opportunities. And this kind of lateral thinking is best done at the first hour of your day.
Give it a whirl, and let me know how it goes! Whether it’s a notebook by your bed where you jot down your early morning ideas, or a focused hour at your desk writing and strategizing - your creative juices in the morning beckon you.
Thrive and step into your Next Level Leadership.
