In Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Years, Anne Lamott writes about a time she was fixated on a married man—someone she adored and who adored her back. She confessed to a friend, a recovering addict and alcoholic, that she was constantly tempted to call him. Every time they spoke, she wanted to shower him with affection, caught up in the rush of how “luscious and powerful” he was. Her friend listened and kindly replied, “Yeah, yeah, I get it, I’ve done it. But I think each step of the way you gotta ask yourself, Do I want the hit or do I want the serenity?”
“It seemed one of the most profound things I’d ever heard,” Anne reflects. It’s a question that has helped her hundreds of times since—whether with food, men, or anything else that threatens to hijack her peace.
Laundry or writing?
When Louise DeSalvo started writing, she was working full-time, raising two toddlers, caring for her elderly parents, and running a household. Still, she aimed to write two hours a day when she could. If she couldn’t, she would at least write something. “I tried to write every day, no matter what,” she said. “I wrote when my children were napping, or later, when they attended school. Many parents squander that precious time on household tasks. Instead, I did laundry, shopped, and cooked when my children were around.”
Choosing to do one thing means choosing not to do something else. If you want time to write, you have to give something up. “All too often, aspiring writers choose to give up writing. My mentor said it’s important to say, ‘I’m choosing to do the laundry instead of writing,’ instead of saying, ‘I don’t have time to write.’”
Try saying it throughout the day: I’m choosing to read the news instead of a book. I’m choosing to reply to emails instead of starting the project. I’m choosing to look at beautiful houses on Zillow instead of cleaning my own. And on and on.
Special or happy?
A highly respected financier in her mid-fifties—once a star on Wall Street—began to worry her skills were slipping. She wasn’t as sharp as she used to be, and younger colleagues were questioning her judgment. Panicked, she reached out to social scientist Arthur Brooks.
As they spoke, Brooks learned she was deeply unhappy. She “lived to work” and was constantly exhausted. Her marriage was falling apart, and her relationships with her adult children were strained. Now, she feared she was losing her edge in the one thing she had left: her career.
To Brooks, the answer seemed obvious. Why hadn’t she taken time to revive her marriage, reconnect with her kids, or cut back on work? “I knew that her grueling work effort had made her successful in the first place,” he said, “but when you figure out something has secondary consequences that are making you miserable, you find a way to fix it, right? You might love bread, but if you become gluten intolerant, you stop eating it because it makes you sick.” Why hadn’t she been working on the obvious problems?
She thought about it for a moment, then looked at him and said flatly, “Maybe I would prefer to be special rather than happy.”
Brooks was stunned. Her answer lingered in his mind. It reminded him of something. But what? Then it hit him.
Her reasoning—that she preferred being special over being happy—was not unlike the response given by a recovering drug addict when asked why he had continued to get high even though he was fully aware it was making him miserable. “I cared more about being high than being happy,” the addict had said.
The financier, Brooks realized, was an addict, too. A work addict. She cared more about being special than happy. She was choosing her ego over herself, the hit over serenity.
People are often surprised when I tell them I write three pages in my journal each morning.
“How do you have that much to say?” they ask.
I tell them it’s not really about having something to say. I just write down what I’m thinking—what I’m excited about, what I have to do that day, how good a brownie sounds. If I have nothing to write, I write I have nothing to write until something else comes out.
It’s what Julia Cameron coined as Morning Pages—three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing done first thing in the morning.I first read about Morning Pages in Julia Cameron’sThe Artist’s Way, which I bought in 2012.
I was skeptical. My first entry reads, “Really do not want to do this. Doubt this will help anything really. I didn’t think I needed help really, but I haven’t been sticking to the writing schedule I set for myself.”
For the next five years, I wrote Morning Pages on and off before finally sticking with them for good.
This month, I pulled out the Sterilite storage bins full of old Morning Pages and read through some. And I noticed something curious. Something about the dates.
On September 28, 2012, the same day I started writing Morning Pages, I broke up with my then-boyfriend—something I had been putting off for months.
On August 20, 2013, after not writing Pages for a few months, I picked them up again. Two days later, I slid into my future wife’s DMs. A few months after that, I finally moved out of my parents’ house.
Between 2014 and 2016, I didn’t write a single Page. Those years were marked by one crappy call center job after another.
Then, in early 2017, I started writing Pages again. Not long after, I enrolled in community college. I graduated in 2019. I kept writing. In 2020, I landed the job I have today, one I love.
Until this month, I hadn’t realized it: almost every pivotal shift in my life has coincided with the periods I was writing Morning Pages.
It’s no wonder Julia Cameron calls Morning Pages her lifeline. “I would no more do without them than I would try not breathing,” she says. The list of people who swear by them includes Olivia Rodrigo, Tim Ferriss, Billy Oppenheimer, and Elizabeth Gilbert, who said without Morning Pages, “there would be noEat, Pray, Love.”
I started writing Pages to unlock creative blocks. I didn’t expect them to quietly shape my life.
You could call it a coincidence—I would’ve made those choices anyway. I’m not so sure. The pattern’s too strong to ignore.
But even if the timing was a coincidence, the benefits I get from writing them are not.
If you’re wondering what Morning Pages actually help with, here’s my answer—after 12+ years of writing them, I can confidently say they’ll help you…
Clear the mental fog
Morning Pages aren’t quite the same as journaling. With journaling, you usually have a topic or theme or something you’re trying to figure out. With Morning Pages, you write whatever’s in your head—no structure, no filter. You dump the junk drawer in your mind so you can get on with your day.
Tim Ferriss, author ofThe 4-Hour Work Week, said, “Morning pages don’t need to solve your problems. They simply need to get them out of your head, where they’ll otherwise bounce around all day like a bullet ricocheting inside your skull”.
By the time you’re done, your head is clear. No more mental pit stops throughout the day to decide what to do next. You already know.
Take action
Morning Pages surface unresolved problems until you deal with them. They don’t let up. They circle back, repeating the same thoughts, wearing you down until you finally take action.
For instance, this month, I wanted to pinpoint the epiphany I had in my 2017 Pages about going back to school. I scanned page after page looking for the tell-tale signs of a dramatic turning point—exclamation marks, all caps, maybe some lightning bolt doodles.
Instead, I found: “I guess I’ll get my stupid degree.”
Wait, what?? I guess I’ll get my stupid degree???
I don’t remember being so annoyed and reluctant. But apparently I was. But that’s the thing: sometimes doing the right thing feels like surrender.
Anyway, that’s what Pages do—they compel you to take action if for no other reason than they won’t shut up about it until you do.
Change perspective
I read a recent article by an author who said writing Morning Pages made her miserable. She would spend day after day writing about how sad she was, which only made her feel worse.
Of course, everyone’s experience is different. But for me, it’s been the exact opposite. If I’m sad or anxious, writing it down helps shift my perspective, which is often healing in itself.
When blink-182’s bassist Mark Hoppus was diagnosed with stage 4a lymphoma in 2021, his therapist suggested he keep a journal throughout chemo to help with his anxiety and depression. “Write down whatever you’re feeling, stream of thought. Write like no one’s ever gonna read it.”
His first entry, on May 11th, was raw and brutal. Confused. Angry. Hopeless. “Good fucking times,” he wrote after describing the first few rounds of chemo. He wonders if he would be better off dead.
A few weeks later, he writes, “You’re a real fighter? Holy shit. You’re just too afraid to do the right thing and die.”
But then, in the very next line, he admonishes himself. “No. Don’t do that. Think positive. . . . Is this therapeutic? Is this helping? Writing down all my thoughts? My hair is falling out and I’m throwing it into the fire.”
By June, though still struggling, his tone had shifted. He started listing things he was grateful for. “You’re the luckiest person on the planet,” he wrote. And later: “I have so many kind and caring friends. Good people. I’m blessed.”
Pay attention to your life
Even on days when I have nothing to say, when the only words rolling off the nib of my pen are the lowest-hanging fruits of thought and the shallowest observations, I’m still benefiting. I’m still noticing things about myself. I’m still clearing my mind for a calmer start to the day, still spending time with my thoughts.
In short, I’m paying attention to my life. I’m engaged and active. I happen to life, not the other way around.
I’ve noticed that when I’m paying attention to my life, that’s when I’m happiest.
Pay attention to your feelings
Negative emotions don’t have to disappear for you to feel better. Sometimes all it takes to loosen the grip of a feeling is to simply name it. Trace its outline. Examine its contours.
“What we call depression,” Alain de Botton said, “is in fact sadness and anger that have for too long not been paid the attention they deserve.”
Go your own way
One reason Pages are written first thing is that your ego hasn’t fully woken up yet. In those early hours, you’re less guarded. More honest.
As Julia Cameron said, when we’re honest with ourselves, we’re more honest with others. We learn to draw firmer boundaries. We speak more clearly. We trust our instincts.
We follow our own path in life because we’ve already practiced following it on the page.
Keep the important stuff in the forefront
Epictetus said our predicament is that time and again, we lose sight of what’s important.
The truth never changes. Wisdom is always the same. Our brains are just exceptionally good at forgetting.
Writing each morning helps keep the important things front and center.
Rewrite your software
If we don’t monitor our thoughts, we become vulnerable to their influence and control. We can end up living in the worst way: unconsciously.
Lusting for money, worshiping material things, seeking power, thinking you’re the center of the universe…what’s insidious about these things “is not that they’re evil or sinful,” writes David Foster Wallace, “it is that they are unconscious.”
Morning Pages make us more conscious of our lives. It’s a spiritual process, and as Sadhguru put it, “A spiritual process means we have made up our minds to rewrite our software, consciously.”
Hear the wisdom within
Your subconscious is wise. The problem is that it’s terribly quiet and shy. It often won’t respond to direct questioning.
That’s where Pages come in.
Morning Pages create a regular, quiet, purpose-free space for your subconscious thoughts to roam freely. Only then, in familiar solitude with you, do they feel comfortable speaking up. And when they do, watch out—they’re assertive.
Create space between self and mind
The Buddha became enlightened when he stopped identifying with his personality and became a witness to his intellect.
The essence of yoga and meditation is to arrive at the space between yourself and your mind. In this space, you’re free from limitations. Your sense of clarity and perspective is heightened, along with your freedom.
We can access this state each morning in our Pages.
See what’s in your head
Write down “the contents of the noise in your head,” Verlyn Klinkenborg says. “You can’t revise or discard what you don’t consciously recognize.”
By dumping our thoughts and feelings onto the page, we’re able to sift through, untangle, and examine them. And discard the ones that no longer serve us.
Connect to your superpower
Epictetus said we differ from animals and plants in two ways: we can reason and reflect—two things animals and plants don’t need because they were made to obey, not command.
Our ability to look inward is our superpower.
“It is impossible to write Morning Pages for any extended period of time without coming into contact with an unexpected inner power,” Andrew M. Barry says, quoting Julia Cameron. “Anyone who faithfully writes Morning Pages will be led to a connection with a source of wisdom within.”
Animals can look only outward and dream. Humans can look inward and, as Carl Jung said, awaken.
Invest in yourself
Years ago, I read an article by an author who said Morning Pages were a waste of time. She had pages and pages of writing, she complained, but nothing publishable. I remember feeling the same way about my Morning Pages. I could be producing actual content in the real world. I could be getting things done. Yet, here I am, hunched over my journal writing gibberish.
But I was missing the point.
I don’t write Pages to “be productive”. I write them to calm and prepare myself for the day (ironically making me more productive throughout).
I think of what Leo Tolstoy said: “If you can see all of the consequences of your actions, then your actions are of no consequence. All great things are happening in slow and inconspicuous ways.”
I remind myself that even if it doesn’t feel like it, the small moments I spend writing—working on myself—are adding up in unfathomable ways.
Whenever I feel an urge to stop short of my three pages and do something more “urgent” or “important”, I say to myself, I will get to that thing in just a bit. Right now, this is what’s most important.
It might be the most important thing you do all day.
By the way, here are some tips to get you Paging like a pro:
-Wake up about 30 minutes earlier to give yourself time to write.
-Julia Cameron recommends using 8 x 11–inch notebooks. (I’m currently using a 5.75 x 8.25 journal, so I write 5-6 pages—roughly the same amount of space as three larger pages.) (Also: These are great pens.)
-Stop at three pages. Why? You don’t want to slip into overthinking. The whole point of Morning Pages is to get you to take action.
-Write them quickly—but not so quickly that you can’t read your own handwriting.
-It’s not six pages. Not front and back of three. It’s three sides: one full page, the back of that page, and one more.
-You can eat breakfast first. At least, I do. Then I drink my coffee as I write.
-You can skip weekends. Again, at least Ido.
-You don’t have to reread them. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t.
-They’re private. If you live with…curious people, find a way to lock up your journal or bring it with you during the day. You won’t get the most out of them if you’re not being honest.
When Harry Truman chose Dan Acheson to be the Secretary of State, Acheson said he was worried that he “was not qualified to meet the demands of the office,” McCullough writes. “This, responded Truman, was undoubtedly so, but then he could say the same for himself, or any man. The question was whether he would do the job?”
In casual conversation Truman would often say there were probably a million other men who would make a better president than him. “But that was not the point. He, Harry Truman, was the President.” He had to answer the call. “I have a job and I have to do it,” Harry would say. “And the rest of you have to help me.”
Fill up a bunch of pages with blah-blah-blah
One of the most damaging ideas to creativity is to think that if you can’t win, you shouldn’t play. “I wish that Harper Lee had kept writing,” Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic. “I wish that, right after Mockingbird and her Pulitzer Prize, she had turned out five cheap and easy books in a row—a light romance, a police procedural, a children’s story, a cookbook, some kind of pulpy action-adventure story, anything. You might think I’m kidding, but I’m not. Imagine what she might have created, even accidentally, with such an approach. At the very least, she could have tricked everyone into forgetting that she’d once been Harper Lee. She could have tricked herself into forgetting that she’d once been Harper Lee, which might have been artistically liberating.” Gilbert goes on to say she wishes somebody had given Ralph Ellison and Scott F. Fitzgerald the go-ahead to just write anything and put it out there. And “any other creator, famous or obscure, who ever vanished beneath the shadow of their own real or imagined reputation. I wish somebody had told them all to go fill up a bunch of pages with blah-blah-blah and just publish it, for heaven’s sake, and ignore the outcome.”
How sly of him to teach
Trying to get inside the character of Walter White in Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston needed to understand Walter. Walter was brilliant. He could have done anything he wanted in life. He started the company Gray Matters Technology with a friend, only to give it up and become a teacher. But why? Was it because he was afraid of failing? “What if everyone you knew growing up said you were destined for greatness, you couldn’t miss, and then you missed?” Cranston mused. “That’s not just failure. It’s collapse. It’s catastrophe.” Maybe that terrified Walt.
“And then I thought: How sly of him to teach. Why? That profession is unassailable. He could get away with saying: ‘I didn’t want the corporate world. I wanted to give my passion to the next generation. I had a calling.’ Teaching is a calling for many people. But not Walt. He was hiding out. Had he become a truck driver, people would have criticized him. But a teacher? Untouchable.”
The question is not whether you’re the best, or even whether you’re good. The question is will you do the job? Will you do the work you were called to do?
-Know what you will work on that day. How has Ryan Holiday been able to write more than a dozen books in as many years? He says that when he sits down to write, his goal is not, “finish the rough draft,” or “write until noon.” His goal is “write section 2 of chapter 3.”
-Set a stop time. Writing without a stop time is torture, Jerry Seinfeld said. “It’s like if you hire a trainer to get in shape, and you ask, ‘How long is the session?’ And he says, ‘It’s open-ended.’ Forget it. I’m not doing it.” If you’re going to sit down and write, there has to be a reward for that. “And the reward is the alarm goes off and you’re done.”
-Write every day. It adds up. Simon Sinek put it like this: “It’s like exercising or brushing your teeth. You don’t get in shape by going to the gym for 8 hours a few times a year. You get in shape by going to the gym for 30 minutes four or five or six days a week.”
-Don’t worry about finding your voice. Just write as clearly as you can. An authentic voice follows clear writing.
-If it doesn’t excite you, don’t write about it.
-At every stage of the writing process, ask yourself, what is this thing about? What is the theme? Sometimes finding the theme is hard. You may not even know the theme while you’re writing. But never stop trying to find it.
-Writers don’t get writer’s block. Writers get caught up in thinking about whether their writing is good or bad.
-Steven Pressfield said to sit without hope and without fear. To work at your desk without the hope of writing something good nor the fear of writing something bad. He explains, “When I sit down to write in the morning, I literally have no expectations for myself or for the day’s work. My only goal is to put in three or four hours with my fingers punching the keys. I don’t judge myself on quality. I don’t hold myself accountable for quantity. The only questions I ask are, Did I show up? Did I try my best?”
