In a rare interview on the Tim Ferriss Show the elusive Josh Waitzkin describes how he trains his top performing hedge fund executives to become powerful thinkers by tapping into their subconscious mind and their deepest levels of creativity.
He describes how he systematically trains this ability in his clients and students by getting them to follow a simple daily practice.
His prescribed daily practice is summarised as follows:
- Schedule a 10 minute post-mortem journaling time at the end of your working day, begin by recapping what you worked on through the course of the day, then ask yourself “Where am I stuck?” or “What is the most important question I can ask right now?”
- Do not try and answer the question yet.
- As soon as you wake up the next morning, spend 5-10 minutes writing freely in your journal.
- At the end of each week, look back over your most important questions and journaling sessions for the week.
- Identify any patterns or gaps in your work.
Sounds simple? Sure!
Sounds vague? Definitely!
It turns out this simple practice is very difficult to master.
As I adopted this practice into my own journals, I trawled all of his materials and interviews to get further clarity on the steps and advice from Josh that I have incorporated into my journal system.
Tús Maith Journals 