Now, if you guys know me, you know that I do a lot of personal development. I think it’s incredibly important to do something every day to make yourself better, to help yourself learn and grow, challenge yourself, and just put more good information into your brain to expand your knowledge of the world around you. Committing to learning every day is one of the best brain tips out there. But I encountered another brain tip that pretty much blew my mind the other week, and I wanted to share it with you.

I originally learned this technique from a video I was watching that features memory improvement and brain performance expert, Jim Kwik. He specializes in study of the mind and how the brain works, and how we can leverage the way that our brain naturally works to retain information better, and maximize our output and performance.

How to Leverage the Brain’s “Theta” State

In the video, Jim Kwik talks about the different states that our brain can exist in. And there are many different states because the brain is a very complicated organ. But the one that he focuses on in this video is a state called the theta state. And basically this state occurs when we are just waking up in the morning, or when we’re just about to fall asleep at night, or even when we’re in the shower. It’s a very relaxed, liminal state where our brain is very creative and able to generate new ideas effortlessly!

As you can probably imagine, it’s when we’re in this theta state that we have some of our best ideas. This is why some of us have some of our best, “million dollar ideas” in the shower!

Bottom line: this theta state is very important, and it only happens a couple times in our days, so we need to learn how to maximize it. And a great way to do that is by being aware of the potential of this theta state when we first wake up.

For most of us, one of the first things we do when we wake up in the morning is check our phones – check email, check Instagram, check Facebook, etc. And this is a pretty normal occurence! Our phones are our lifelines – they’re how we stay connected to the world around us, so naturally we reach for it when we first wake up.

But, this is actually, as Jim says in the video, a very bad practice to get into, because basically what you’re doing is you are quashing all of that beautiful creativity that happens when you first wake up in the morning when you’re in this theta state. Anytime you open apps on your phone, you are making yourself very susceptible to texts, messages, emails, images, and everything from other people’s agendas, other people’s ideas, other people’s experiences. And that’s no way to start your day. Instead, you should spend your crucial theta state stoking that creative fire, and just priming yourself for an incredibly productive, passion and purpose-fueled day ahead.

An Exercise for Boosting Daily Output by Using the Theta State of the Brain

Jim Kwik shared this tactic that he uses to maximize his daily productivity and output that I think is brilliant. I’ve been using it now for the past three weeks or so when I start my days – and it’s great! It definitely helps you break the cycle of just waking up and checking your phone, or waking up and checking email, and already putting yourself in the path of other people’s negativity, or ideas, or anything, and just being able to start your day in a beautiful, intentional way.

So here’s the exercise that he recommends: At night before you go to sleep, keep a small journal next to your bed and write down three things that you want to get done tomorrow in your professional life, and three things that you want to get done in your personal life. So these should be your biggest three priorities going into the day ahead. So if you were to write down these priorities tonight, what are three personal priorities that you are absolutely going to get done tomorrow, and what are three professional priorities that you are absolutely going to get done tomorrow?

And so the secret to this method is you write down those priorities, just three – three personal, three professional. In doing so, you limit your focus and your attention to things that are the most important to you. And then when you wake up in the morning, and you have those priorities in front of you: you are not allowed to check your email, get on social media, really step outside of your personal “theta” headspace until you complete one of those things.

So, for example, if one of your personal priorities was to get a workout in, you could do that first and start your day with that, and THEN go into everything else that you wanted to do today for that day (including check your email, open up social media, and generally interact with the world). This practice basically primes you to start the day with success because you are listing out your priorities, and you’re making it a sure thing that you are going to complete and cross off one of those priorities before you do anything else for the rest of the day.

But I thought this was super, super cool, and I’ve been using it for the last couple of days, and it really has changed my morning routine, and it’s changed just how I feel on a daily basis. Because I’m able to start my morning super productively and in a meaningful way, not just doing something to get it done, but doing something that’s important, and that’s a priority to me… and THEN moving on with the rest of my day.

So – give this brain tip a try and see how it transforms your daily output (and not to mention, your mental state throughout the day!)