Why I avoid looking at my phone in the morning

When I look at my phone in the morning, it derails my train of thought.

I usually wake up with new ideas that are continuations of what I was working on the night before.

I lie there in bed for a while as the ideas continue to develop, e.g., more lines get added to a poem, more steps get added to a process.

Until it gets to the point where I can't remember it all in my head and I don't want to forget, so I get out of bed to write it down.

I try to avoid going straight to my desk.

Lately, I've been stretching, washing my face, and drinking a glass of water before I start my work.

Then I sit down at my desk, and this is when I sometimes make the mistake of looking at my phone.

I leave my phone plugged in on my desk overnight.

So when I sit down my phone is right there within reach and it’s almost effortless to pick it up and look at the screen.

Some mornings, I don’t pick it up. I’m able to stay focused on whatever ideas I woke up with.

Other mornings, I convince myself there’s a legitimate reason like I need to check for messages from people I work with overseas or I want to check the weather before I go to the gym.

So I pick it up and see all the notifications on the screen.

And that's exactly when my train of thought gets derailed.

This has happened to me so many times that I have a good grasp on exactly what happens.

Imagine my thoughts as railroads and railcars …

When I wake up in the morning with a new idea, there is one railroad and one railcar. Then, as the idea develops, more railcars get added, all on that one railroad.

This is the ideal scenario for creativity. I have a one-track mind. I’m working on one thing and it’s my best, freshest idea in the early morning and all my energy is pushing the railcars along the one railroad.

Then I check my phone and see the notifications …

How should I respond to this text message from my brother?

Did the restaurant overcharge me last night?

I have that meeting at 11am. Do I need to prepare?

My buy order filled. Is the market down today?

Now I have many railroads in my mind, going in different directions and breaking off into tangents.

Instead of a one-track mind, my mind becomes a complex web.

My energy gets split among the different tracks and I can’t pick up momentum chugging along any one track for an extended period of time.

And that is why I avoid looking at my phone until after I've finished at least a two-hour sprint on creative work early in the morning.