I started doing Morning Pages on a whim, as a way to clear my mind first thing, to set me up for the day ahead. And after 30 days I can finally say, without any doubt or equivocation, that Morning Pages is an essential part of my daily routine. To the extent that when set off for a two day walk and was packing my bag, bearing in mind I was packing for a good 17 to 20 mile walk then and overnight, I couldn’t leave out the in Large Journal that I’ve started using for my Morning Page, when I wake up, I have to do my morning pages now as much as I do the other things I do in the morning.

That large notebook is symbolic of another significant change. When I started, quite spontaneously, I grabbed some loose leaf A5 paper, which felt right. Julia Cameron in The Artists’ Way recommends US Letter size (21.6cm x 27.9cm) – which felt intimidating at the time. I reached a point towards the end of those first 30 days when the pages felt too small, too narrow. Now I’m writing in XL Moleskine Cahier notebooks (19 x 25cm) which is close to the US Letter size that Julia Cameron recommends. And the great advantage of these is that available pretty much everywhere in High Street stationers.

The morning pages are now right there in the front of my mind. I couldn’t conceive of going away and not doing my morning pages.

So what have I learned from these 30 days?

It just purges the mind first thing in the morning. It releases anxious thoughts, just putting them down in your morning pages. It’s just the release of thoughts. And that’s a great way to start the day.

It reminds me a little bit of meditation. By allowing yourself to write whatever, not mediating it, not editing, not filtering or judging, you release a lot of things that you just don’t really need in your head, rattling around all day.

When I wake up in the morning, I roll over, get the pen in the paper and start doing it.

You start to see connections in your thoughts, patterns in your life. Seemingly unconnected streams that flow through the same valley. I realized that these seemingly unconnected streams of thought, are actually connected. And this partly came out of just journaling about watching Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency the night before.

Finally (and you might say most importantly), I’ve learned more about myself, a lot more about myself. I can’t imagine doing without it now.