MY MIND PALACE
Do you know what one of my secret weapons is? What tool do I value most? What do I attribute much of my best work to?
Is it my intelligence? No, I interact with a lot of people that are smarter than me.
Is it my work ethic? I love being productive, but I see many people around me working harder than I do.
Is it my dedication? Since having children, I’ve significantly cut back the hours I work every week and now see a lot of people working a lot more hours than I do.
To be sure, each of these qualities is necessary to be successful. Something important would be missing without them. But they are not enough. The value they produce is limited by the value of what they are working on. Garbage in, garbage out.
WELCOME HOME
The single most important tool I have access to is my mind palace.
What is that you ask? It is more than just gray matter.
This is an old term recently repopularized by the BBC Sherlock Holmes series. You can read the complete context of the term on Wikipedia, but I'll practically define it as the cerebral temple I have built with my lifetime of experiences and memories. It contains the rooms I have filled with information which I can visit to figure what I know and what I don’t know.
It is the place to discover new connections. It is where I can review solutions to past problems and see how well they can be applied to current problems.
Each of us has knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, spent our lifetime building our own mind palace. Therefore, each is unique in its design and content.
Some have stayed true to a particular architectural style (acquiring narrow long-term expertise within a single company or in a single business function) while others have chosen more eclectic designs (pursuing a career that cross companies, functions, topics and industries).
I’m not claiming I have built a mind palace that is any better than your mind palace. But I’d be willing to bet I’m more dedicated to the upkeep of mine. And I make more time to regularly visit it.
As part of almost every project I work on, I take time during the design phase and time during the summarization phase to stroll through my mind palace to make sure I didn’t miss something important. For me, it is often a random walk of reflection where I anticipate my mind to make connections I wasn't consciously looking for.
TAKING A MENTAL VACATION
While I can visit my mind palace at any time, I’ve found the experience to be more fruitful the more intentional it is. And pairing it with the right soundtrack.
When I’m designing a new project and trying to wrap my mind around what needs to be learned and what needs to be delivered, I’ll stream classical music while laying on a couch in front of a fire or on a lounge chair in the sun.
When I’m trying to figure how to work more productively or efficiently, I put on the Beats headphones and turn up Macklemore (on repeat) while going for a run or workout on the elliptical.
When I’m searching for creative inspiration, I’ll spend time in my workshop while streaming Mumford & Sons.
I typically don’t visit my mind palace at my desk or in front of my computer. I’ve got a notebook nearby or a voice recorder app ready to capture the lightening I hope to bottle, but I intentionally remove myself from my typical working environment. I guess this is how I apply Einstein's view of insanity.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
MY MIND COMPLETES ME
This practice originated when I had just started out on my own and found myself with more time than clients. Like Jerry Maguire, I needed my first few clients a lot more than they needed me. I was very motivated to show them the money.
I not only had just started my business with the wonderful ideal of setting a new standard in the quality of work I did, but I also wasn’t exactly 100% certain that I could deliver a product that was superior. I believed that I could be above average, but I still had doubts that clients might view the work I perceived as exceptional as actually closer to the center of the spectrum of excellence (i.e. mediocre).
So the combination of free time and fear drove me deep into my mind palace to make sure I was bringing my A-game every time.
In my mind palace, I was amazed with the number of new ideas I came across. What I found in there produced new approaches to the problems I was being paid to solve. It revealed possible connections that could have easily been overlooked.
What came out of my mind palace turned out to be the most important and value-added time I invested in those first few projects. And that has been consistently replicated with over 100 clients since then. The work on those clients has provided a steady stream of updates and additions to my palace. And it is has reaffirmed how much value I place on constant learning and improvement.
SET UP REGULAR VISITS TO YOUR MIND PALACE
I understand how scarce your time is. I understand that today’s approach to business places value on the volume of work done and downsizing potentially has you doing one and a half roles at the moment. And you already feel behind on your efforts to network more or get better at playing office politics.
I realize that the premise of this entire series of articles is that your product failure will come from the things you didn’t do.
But I also know that doing more doesn’t equal getting more done.
As you begin new projects. As projects get near completion. When you are going through exhausting deadline-driven 16-hour days. Force yourself to visit your mind palace. Step away from the assembly line.
Let your mind wander through all the work you’ve done and all the work that lies ahead of you. Make the assumption that there are connections and opportunities you've missed. Treat your wandering more like a search for those overlooked or disconnected clues.
While I can’t guarantee that every visit to your mind palace produces bottled lightning, I can speak for my own experience and say that time in my mind palace is consistently the most valuable investment I make.
If your current situation makes these visitations impossible, consider renting my mind palace. It won’t have the same rooms and content that your mind palace does, but I’m willing to bet I can come back with new perspective or new solutions you can quickly translate into problem-solving actions.