As I'm falling asleep, I get a solution to a problem I've been working on at Stanford,

and the solution comes to me, and immediately my first thought is,

I'll remember that in the morning. But then I thought, no, no, I should write it down,

I should do my, you know, I don't want to be a hypocrite. I want to keep telling people that

they need to do this. So, and I kind of wrestled with myself, honestly, because for, you know,

five minutes, I'm kind of, you know, chanting the idea of myself, seeing if I can remember it,

so I don't forget it, right? Finally, I roll over. I'm like, forget it. It's not worth it.

I'm just going to write this thing down. So, I write it down, kind of disrupt my sleep,

right? I was comfortable. I got all the pillows situated, you know, and messed all that up,

wrote it down, and then I go to sleep, you know, 15, 20 minutes later. Well, when I woke up in the

morning, what's amazing is the idea was there. The first thing that I thought was this idea,

and I go, my first thought was, oh, my goodness, I knew I'd remember it, right? But then my next

thought was, I looked at the notebook. The idea that I had remembered was different than the idea I

wrote down. I had a second, totally novel solution to the problem. And if you had asked me, if you'd

put a lie detector on me, I would have sworn it's the same idea that I woke up thinking about,

right? And so, the point there is we just were, we overestimate our ability to remember. We

overestimate our ability to, to hold these things. And so, having a simple practice, as simple

as keeping notebook by the bed, does wonders for our ability to solve problems in novel ways.

I'm Sreeni Rao, and this is the unmistakable creative podcast where you get a window into the

stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds, started movements, built

driving businesses, written best selling books, and created an insanely interesting art.

For more, check out our 500 episode archive at unmistakablecreative.com.

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