How small changes can wake up parts of your brain that your routine put to sleep.
In Feel Good Productivity, Ali Abdaal references a study about integrating small deviations from what you normally do into your daily life.
Apparently, people who regularly make minor changes to their routines, e.g. taking a different route to work, report that they’re overall happier.
How could we integrate that into our daily lives? Maybe by taking a different path when we go for a run.
Maybe by choosing a different drink when we go to a bar.
Maybe by simply asking ourselves: what is something I can do now that my brain doesn’t expect? Seems contradictory because we often feel like we ARE our brain, but in reality, we SHAPE our brain. It is very well possible to make a decision to do something that your brain doesn’t expect in that moment.
I like to keep lists of things I have never done before. Nothing crazy like kayaking on the Amazon or so, but everyday stuff that can be easily integrated into my daily life. The other day I started a list of options I can realize around my house and in my own city.
Simple things like sitting on a park bench I’ve never used before after work with a sandwich to just have a good chat with a friend. Then I commit to trying one of those experiences per week, or two if I want to go crazy.
They’re very low-stakes experiences, but it’s the equivalent of committing to, let’s say, one push-up per day. It’s hard to NOT do it.
And those slight breaks of routine, changes of pattern, and new perspectives sometimes have an incredibly refreshing effect on my mind, creativity, and overall well-being. There’s a TED Talk by Tomislav Perko (you can check it out on YouTube).
He talks about spontaneity and curiosity while traveling and how much he recommends bringing some of that curiosity back home to make our seemingly dull, everyday lives more adventurous.
So you might want to start your own list now, with 10 small, seemingly simple “micro-adventures” you can easily integrate into your everyday life to bring more color to it. Something as simple as taking a different route to work might stretch your brain in unforeseen ways!
Thanks for reading!
