How to be healthy and creative

In this post, I am going to share a few tips that I have been doing in the past 3 months to stay healthy and creative

I have been learning the course “How to Make Strategic Thinking a Habit” from Dorie Clark. In this course, she teaches a few tips that we can try to make strategic thinking (ST) as a habit. A few things that I could resonate to myself personally.

• Make time for ST - Since three months ago, I have formed a habit of waking up early around 5.30 am to 6:00 am daily. After I wake up, I read a book or content from Josh Steimle about 60-day LinkedIn Mastery. At this hour, I find that my mind very fresh, not cluttered with any emails or calls hijacked into my day yet.

• Go outside - After sending my elder son to school in the morning, I put on shoes and get my wife to jog in the nature around my current place. After 30-min sweating, my brain has become even more alert and calm in the middle of the jungle. I reflect on a conversation with someone or a podcast episode I listened and discuss with my wife.

• Try a different spot in your office. Before Covid-19, I worked at IBM Studios office at Level 42 of MBFC Tower 2, Marina Bay, Singapore. IBM occupies 3 floors of the building - level 41 to 43. I usually went upstairs or downstairs to find a quiet corner looking down the entire Marina Bay area. At that view, my perspective has been broadened, and I could think of a lot more ideas. These days, I am working at home more often. I moved into a new place a few months back. I set aside a bedroom for kids to play and study. I just put up a bookshelf at the corner of that room and sometimes I move my laptop there to work. I find that I could have more thoughts and more quiet moment over there.

Lately, I started the video series called “Hustler Talk” whereby I interviewed entrepreneurs and tech leaders. Occasionally, I did the video editing in an art studio classroom while I was waiting for my kids. I found some laser-focused and creativity moments when I did the video editing in that room. By the way, this is the picture that I painted 2 years ago during an art holiday camp.

Find a new location locally, e.g. a cafeteria. At level 1 of MBFC Tower 1, there is a Dimbulla cafeteria. That cafe interior designed like a co-working space with a long wooden table. Each time I visited the cafe, I found many professionals working on their laptop and I could eardrop business conversations all the time if I wanted to distract myself a bit. My last meeting with the current boss at IBM was at that cafeteria.

PS: I found that I have been much healthier after I exercise daily for 1 to 1.5 hours in the forest in the past 3 months. I could sleep better and don’t feel sleepy in the day. In fact, the Japanese has been advocating for an exercise method called “shinrin-yoku” - which means “forest bathing” in Japanese. You can learn more about it here.