#thout

Assorted doodles that idk if I’ve shared

If you can’t tell, I have a certain go to thing to draw whenever I want to draw myself a little treat

Colored an older sketch (older aka from August) of the two because I’ve been sick today and just feel shitty

Why Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and many more great minds recommend it.

Pratay Das ; thinking-outline

Ever wondered why history’s great minds including Isaac Newton, Abraham Lincoln, Andy Warhol, Leonardo Da Vinci, Marcus Aurelius, Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin, Ernest Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw and Maya Angelou would spend so much of their precious time writing things that will never be seen by another soul?

Jim Rohn says, “If you’re serious about becoming a wealthy, powerful, sophisticated, healthy, influential, cultured, and unique individual, keep a journal.”

Many famous creatives, writers, innovators and original thinkers of our generation keep journals— for many, it is a creative necessity, for others, a place for exploration, and for some an art form in and of itself.

Albert Einstein’s travel diary to the United States recorded his experiences abroad from November 1930 to June 1931. Photo from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

But you don’t have to be creative, scientist or an innovator for this practice to be worthwhile.

Journaling helps you prioritize, clarify thinking, and accomplish your most important tasks, over urgent busy work.

Thinking in writing has this magical quality of clarifying your thoughts.

Tim Ferriss calls journaling the deloading phase in life. He explains, “I use it as a tool to clarify my thinking and goals, much as Kevin Kelly (one of my favorite humans) does. The paper is like a photography darkroom for my mind.”

Get used to the pen again!

Reflective writing has also been shown to improve decision-making and critical thinking in a number of medical professions.

Michael Hyatt says “What happens to us is not as important as the meaning we assign to it. Journaling helps sort this out.”

Journals give you a record of the progress you’ve made toward your goals to keep you motivated in the long slog of actually reaching them.

Charles Darwin kept numerous notebooks to record his discoveries and thoughts on everything from his first sketch of an evolutionary tree (left) to important books to read (right). Photo from Public Domain.

“As part of your morning creative burst, use your journal to review and hone your daily to-do list. Review and hone your life vision and big picture goals” says Benjamin Hardy.

Numerous studies (of the scientifically rigorous variety) have shown that personal writing can help people better cope with stressful events, relieve anxiety, boost immune cell activity

Judy Willis MD, a neurologist, and former classroom teacher explains, “The practice of writing can enhance the brain’s intake, processing, retaining, and retrieving of information… it promotes the brain’s attentive focus … boosts long-term memory, illuminates patterns, gives the brain time for reflection, and when well-guided, is a source of conceptual development and stimulus of the brain’s highest cognition.”

What you write, you control. You don’t have to spend your whole morning writing, but the only rule is to write continuously. Be consistent to make the most of it.

Throughout his life, inventor Thomas Edison jotted down ideas and thoughts in personal journals. Photo from Edison and the Rise of Innovation.

An Optimal Approach to Start Journaling

Start each morning by identifying tasks, goals for the day.

Only write a few bullet points (2/3) to make it easier to start and make progress. You can mix personal and work stuff together.

By keeping each day’s entry short and simple, you are making it so easy to journal without excuses.

At the end of each day, look back at what you accomplished, what you learned, what you want to follow-up on tomorrow, and what you want to pursue tomorrow.

Start small. Make micro-commitment each day to get started.

Don’t make a huge commitment. Try it for 30 days. Spend just 5- 10 minutes a day reflecting in your journal. When the 30 days are up, go back and review what you’ve learned and the progress you’ve made. Then you can decide if you want to continue journaling.

Aim for 5 to 10 minutes of uninterrupted time to do your journaling, ideally the same time every day.

What you write, draw or sketch is completely up to you.

Just sit and write.

Over 7,000 pages of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings, ideas, and natural inspirations have been preserved. Photo from The British Library.

Mind-map, list goals, outline your vision, doodle, draw, sketch, make a gratitude list, list your short-term and long-term, write down everything you are curious about, list your passion projects, make a daily entry of needs to be done, reflect on your accomplishments, etc.

Just get all the ideas out on paper, and push yourself to see if more are hanging around in the background of your mind.

Come back to them later to see if anything jumps out at you.

As part of your morning and post-work journaling sessions, be sure to write about everything you are grateful for. Gratitude journaling is a scientifically proven way to overcome several psychological challenges.

It will change your entire life orientation from scarcity to abundance.

“Writing in a journal each day, with a structured, strategic process allows you to direct your focus to what you did accomplish, what you’re grateful for, and what you’re committed to doing better tomorrow. Thus, you more deeply enjoy your journey each day, feel good about any forward progress you made, and use a heightened level of clarity to accelerate your results,” says Hal Elrod, author of “The Miracle Morning.”

According to Dr. James Pennebaker, an expert in the field of expressive writing, to get the best results from journaling, it was recommended that you:

Forget about grammar/spelling when you write.

Be honest and authentic (write like no one else is going to read it).

Write by hand for better memory recall.

Adopt cursive writing to get your thoughts out faster.

Journaling alone won’t boost your productivity. But when you combine action with reflection you’ll take better actions over time.

“Writing accesses you’re the left hemisphere of the brain, which is analytical and rational,” says Maud Purcell, a psychotherapist and journaling expert. “While your left brain is occupied, your right brain is free to do what it does best, i.e. create, intuit and feel. In this way, writing removes mental blocks and allows us to use more of our brainpower to better understand ourselves and the world around us.”

Journaling is not a commonplace habit, it is a keystone habit. Keystone habits affect how you work, eat, play, live, spend, and communicate.

As Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit” says, “..they encourage change by creating structures that help other habits to flourish.” A minor change in one aspect of your life can trigger so many other positive changes.

The Duck Hunt gun, officially called the NES Zapper, seems downright primitive next to today’s technology. But in the late ’80s, it filled plenty of young heads with wonder.

thinking-outline ; Pratay Das

For many children of the '80s, a good portion of your childhood probably revolved around sitting too close to the TV, clutching a plastic safety cone-colored hand gun and blasting waterfowl out of a pixilated sky in Duck Hunt (also, trying to blow that dog’s head off when he laughed at you). The Duck Hunt gun, officially called the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Zapper, seems downright primitive next to the Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Kinect, but in the late 80s, it filled plenty of young heads with wonder. How did that thing work?

Annie Get Your Zapper

The Zapper’s ancestry goes back to the mid 1930s, when the first so-called “light guns” appeared after the development of light-sensing vacuum tubes. In the first light gun game, Ray-O-Lite (developed in 1936 by Seeburg, a company that made parts and systems for jukeboxes), players shot at small moving targets mounted with light sensors using a gun that emitted a beam of light. When the beam struck a sensor, the targets – ducks, coincidentally – registered the “hit” and a point was scored.

Light guns hit home video game consoles with Shooting Gallery on the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. Because the included shotgun-style light gun was only usable on a Magnavox television, the game flopped. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Zapper then fell into the hands of American kids in October 1985, when it was released in a bundle with the NES, a controller and a few games. Early versions of the peripheral were dark gray, but the color of the sci-fi ray gun-inspired Zapper was changed a few years later when a federal regulation required that toy and imitation firearms be “blaze orange” (color #12199, to be exact) so they wouldn’t be mistaken for the real deal.

While there were a number of Zapper-compatible games released for the NES (when I was a kid and my dad worked from home, we wasted plenty of afternoons away playing Hogan’s Alley), most lived in the shadow of the iconic Duck Hunt, the most recognizable and popular Zapper game.

Gone in a Flash

While older light guns like the Ray-O-Lite rifle emitted beams of light, the Zapper and many other recent light guns work by receiving light through a photodiode on or in the barrel and using that light to figure out where on the TV screen you're aiming.

Don’t throw them out.

thinking-outline ; Pratay Das

My apartment is essentially a graveyard for things that should have been thrown in the trash. Ombre paint chip strips have found a home on my gallery wall. Dead flowers (sorry, dried flowers) have taken the place of any living blooms, much to my roommate’s chagrin. And when it comes to the vessels I have adorning every available surface, they’re largely trash. Well technically, they’re upcycled trash: I have a thing for hoarding empty candle jars.

The root of my obsession with repurposing every glass and ceramic jar stems—as most things in my life are wont to do—from a borderline insane fear I have of accidentally tossing something I’ll one day have a use for. This fear is the reason I still own low-rise jeans. Except, in this case, repurposing old candle jars has proved incredibly fruitful; not to mention, more sustainable and budget-friendly.

Candles tend to run fairly expensive, and it seems a shame to waste them after they’re burnt out. Especially when they come in such pretty containers. Whether repurposed for organizational or ornamental functions, there are so many uses for old candle jars. The main problem is figuring out how to get them clean.

This is the method I have found to be most effective:

Remove any stickers.

Pop your finished candles in the freezer for a minimum of 24 hours.

Using a sharp knife, carefully jab at the wax to break it into pieces; once these fall out (usually taking the wick with them), your candle should be wax-free.

Soak in a sink of warm, soapy water for an hour or so. Scrub with an old sponge or toothbrush to get rid of residue and soot. In more dire cases, you can also use Goo Gone.

To really sanitize, run the now-empty jars through the dishwasher.  

Convinced yet? Here are a few ways to reuse candle jars in every room of your home.

Succulent Planters

More often than not, plants bought at garden centers don’t come in the most interesting pots. If you have a terra-cotta candle jar, use it to re-pot your succulents and other hard-to-kill greenery. These tiny planters make a great addition to an empty windowsill.

Cotton Beauty Product Holders

Are your medicine and under-sink cabinets cluttered with boxes of Q-tips and plastic tubes of cotton pads? Use sleek glass jars to organize them in style. You’ll be able to use them to decorate your bathroom vanity without worrying about anything clashing with your aesthetic.

Coffee Table Centerpiece

Larger candle jars make the perfect containers for things like shells or polaroids and, in turn, are a great centerpiece for your living room coffee table or end table. I collect matchboxes (because I am a cliche) and store them all in one frosted glass vessel that once housed a three-wick candle.

Entryway Catchall

If your entryway doesn’t have room for much more than a mounted picture ledge, use a smaller jar to hold things like keys and that one lipstick you always grab before running out the door.

Glassware

Aside from two massive water glasses sourced from IKEA, every single cup in my kitchen used to be a candle. I love the mismatched look, and if your style errs more eclectic, collecting an assortment of glass jars in different shapes, colors, and sizes is a budget-friendly way to build out your kitchenware inventory. Plus, they’ll look pretty great on open shelving.

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