Are Morning Pages a Waste of Time or Do They Really Work? (are they worth it?)
written by Adriana
posted on Oct 8, 2022
Morning Pages is the biggest investment of your time leading to stunning results if you have a strategy.
Whether you are new to writing Morning Pages or a disciplined writer taking a break, journaling without prompts might feel like a waste of time. Your mind is wandering for 30 min with no direction and outcome, but you still write despite the ticking clock reminding you about the passing time.
In this article, we take a look at the Morning Pages and share our experience on whether they are waste of time or not.
So, is it worth writing Morning Pages?
If you are new to Morning Pages and don’t have a system around writing it and keeping it safe, it may seem like a waste of time. However, Morning Pages are worth it, if you treat it as a hobby or a creative process, remove insecurities regarding privacy and start processing emotions on paper without judgement.
When you don’t a coach or a therapist, Morning Pages may help you to raise awareness, ask “why” questions, and notice triggers in a time gap you may not have for mind-wandering during the day otherwise.
If you notice feeling more anxious or get bored during writing, check what causes it and what are your expectations, consider non-judgemental perception, notebook with a locker and emphasise the writing process.
Here’s a list of things that make Morning Pages worth your time:
1. They ask you more “Why?” than a therapist or a coach
At the moment when you get the idea of Morning Pages being a waste of time, your attention fully switches to your thoughts on paper.
You’ve been writing about random details for 10 min, but now your expressive writing changed into emotion-processing active problem-solving. In this way, Morning Pages push you to identify the emotion you feel, label it, describe it and analyse it at deeper levels.
Only when you write or say out loud what you feel, your brain is aware of it
That’s why psychologists love asking the magical questions: “ what do you feel now? How this person/situation made you feel?”.
When you give honest answers, you become an analyst of your emotions and learn about your triggers, reactions and behaviours. If you don’t have a therapist or somebody who can listen to your personal catharsis, Morning Pages offer acceptance, companionship and a blank page to start.
It’s worth writing Morning Pages because of emotional processing.
When your mind wanders, you approach your emotions, symbolize and make narrative sense of them. The default mode network is activated during nondirective meditation as the transmission of neural information on emotional experience from one part of the brain to another occurs, e.g., emotional information transfer from the amygdala to other parts of the prefrontal cortex.
2. Morning Pages as non-directed meditation on paper
Less or more? Minimum 3 pages or minimum 30 min? When you perceive Morning Pages as a meditation on paper, you look at it seriously and dedicate time. Then, amount of pages is not important, since your energy is dedicated to the writing process.
When thought is oriented internally and focused on the individual’s goals, mind wandering has the ability to enhance self-awareness.
If you don’t like the idea of meditation or can’t sit observing your thoughts without acting on them, Morning Pages may serve as a form of meditation with one difference – you write your thoughts. While journaling is oriented on the outcomes and planning, a non-directed meditation creates a space for spontaneous thoughts. In this book mind-wandering is reviewed by several psychologists and neuroscientists, who discuss why mind-wandering should be perceived in a more positive light due to its benefits. So what is a non-directive meditation?
Non-directive meditation facilitates mind wandering and default mode network activity. Results from an fMRI study investigating the non-directive meditation process showed mind wandering activates the default mode network and enhances emotion processing as well as retrieval of certain memories. In this way, meditation helps you to wave goodbye to tension and stress accumulated throughout the day.
You can perceive non-directed meditation as a mind wandering with multiple spontaneous processes and reactions which occur involuntarily. For example, spontaneous thoughts, emotions, sensations, breathing, and movement – it’s all about the acceptance of spontaneous brain products. However, remember that without acceptance this meditation practice gets tension and is less open.
It’s difficult to say what you mean when you don’t know what you are thinking.
Mind wandering is a complex cognitive-affective phenomenon in constant relationship to other functions of the psyche, knowingly, volition, imagination, thought, language, memory, affectivity, perception (inner and outer), and creativity.
Morning Pages capture your thoughts like a polaroid camera – one click, and you are holding the photo in your hands.
When you start writing first thing in the morning, you give yourself an opportunity to capture 1 of 6000 thoughts you have per day.
So, you can find your mindfulness during the new Morning Pages routine!
There are two phases in the mind-wandering state: a first shift of attention from the outside world to personal thoughts and the maintenance of attention on the train of thought to protect the internal experience.
3. Know yourself with Morning Pages
Whether you juggle with work-life balance or experience chaos in thinking, 40 min of expressive writing offers you a creative thinking session. Getting to know yourself, as Socrate used to say “Nosce the Ipsum” (Know Thyself), becomes easier, as you analyse your actions, thoughts, and emotions, which create you.
With better awareness of your days, values and triggers, the process of creating a new you, as well as reaching goals is accelerated.
The more you write, the stronger bond you build with your psyche, allowing you to identify your needs. For example, writing Morning Pages for one week made me realise that my state of anxious mind was the product of the area I lived.
If I continue writing every day, eventually the quality of my observations changes. I notice more sentences forming in my mind. On the way to work, grocery shopping, or while cooking, or in the middle of a conversation, I catch myself in a state of mind that resembles writing. – from the book on New Perspectives on Mind-Wandering
Although I was trying to resist change and prove to myself I can accept my surroundings, the first few lines in my journal pushed me to change the story. I started writing about the ideal scenario and the plan of moving out each morning, which helped me to take action. In two weeks I moved out to the place, which fulfilled my requirements.
That’s what Morning Pages can do for you.
Morning Pages as a hobby
If you are an artist or enjoy creative projects, you may perceive it as a hobby.
Whether you are looking for new ideas or a writing session to sharpen your skills, Julia Cameron suggests starting with 3 pages of flow writing without a goal.
Imagination implies a process of meditation about the world and the self, all within the psychological space of a person’s mind – Vygotsky
After engaging and repeating this process for a few days, new goals, project ideas or unexpected life decisions can pop up. For example, I came up with the idea of teaching English in Spain when I was writing my Morning Pages at 8 am. During the day I would think that stepping on this idea is a waste of time, but in the morning I learned to collect all my thoughts and keep them in my notebook.
Now my Morning Pages became a creative writing workshop to break the obstacles in your thinking pattern.
Here you can see me writing at 8 am and breaking the misconceptions about what I cannot do.
Morning Pages give you time to think you never had before
How often do you sit in front of your journal and write without a goal? How often do you think without actively solving one problem? If you go for a walk, that’s perfect, but you are one of a few people who have the luxury to do it.
Writing in the morning is a form of mindfulness practice, which teaches you to observe thoughts, and spend your time doing only it.
So, if you don’t like meditation, try Morning Pages!
Why Morning Pages are not worth it?
1. It may trigger anxiety that your nervous system can’t stand
If you spend most of your time looking at blank pages, and it triggers your anxiety, you will benefit more from more specific writing using journaling prompts or meditating before to bring your nervous system to an optimum state. In this way, cortisol will decrease, and you will be able to focus better in a flow state.
Writing Morning Pages may overwhelm you if you don’t know how the detach and come back to reality.
I cried during Morning Pages writing and experienced these side effects: anxiety, worries, arousal, rumination, depressive thoughts, catastrophic thinking, and tears. However, it was beneficial for me as I processed my emotions and thoughts spontaneously.
2. If you are a perfectionist (like me)
If you are a perfectionist who wants to write a masterpiece and reach New York Best-Seller shelf, Morning Pages may bring more harm than benefits. Since writing for personal development is centred on the process, but not the outcome, the main requirement is no expectations. No rules or goals.
Framing your morning writing into certain protocols may prevent you from recognising your mistakes, or negative emotions, as you are willing to focus on the positive bright side.
However, there is a grey area, which may be uncovered with the help of Morning Pages.
Despite being a perfectionist, you can make your writing process less stressful and enjoy it more. To help you start with writing, I suggest to :
1) perceive this as a game – you are writing to have fun and meet with yourself
2) start with 1 page, not 3 as Julia Cameron suggests
3) throw away Morning Pages straight away after writing.
Here we share 10 tips on what to do with old journals and how to declutter your Morning Pages.
Also, It’s not worth writing Morning Pages if you don’t have time and other priorities are on your way. In this case, you may explore other options to record your thoughts, such as recording your voice in the morning while you are doing house chores. You may sketch or get the sparkle of joy just by looking at the stunning cover of the notebook.
3. Difficulty to keep it private
The secret garden of thoughts – How to keep your Morning Pages private?
If you are scared somebody will find your Morning Pages and read them, use a notebook with a locker-size of iPad. In this way, you can feel calm and write all your deeper thoughts, and process emotions and heavy issues without worrying that somebody will read it. In this article, we review the 5 best notebooks for Morning Pages.
Another option is more creative.
How many people will be interested to check out a dictionary? Probably not many. This is an example of a creative way to keep your Morning Pages “undercovered” without capturing attention since it doesn’t have a clearly visible lock. It provides you with storage, however, if you like writing full A-4 pages, and keeping it tidy, you will need more space.
Personally, I like writing on blank A-4 pages, as it gives me a sense of freedom to explore my thoughts since I know it is not a notebook. Only recently I started writing Morning Pages in a blank A-4 journal and noticed that having a dedicated place for my secret garden of thoughts, I concentrate better and think more before I start writing.
Still, not sure if that’s something that stops me from being completely honest with myself, as I feel insecure if somebody finds it. Moreover, as it is a classic elegant notebook, you may get a faulty sense that it should be filled with great stories, perfect grammar and a plot to get a prize.
Despite this, I enjoy the fact that I can keep it in one place and see the progress of writing to me daily or even be able to come back to the previous day to remind me how I solved the issue or processed heavy emotions.
Final Thoughts
When you start writing and get a new habit, you start noticing what works for you and what doesn’t. Morning Pages give you the option to have a coach for free, who is asking questions why to facilitate the personal development process by exploring triggers, values and directions. Although you may not see the outcomes right away, writing Morning Pages is mind-wandering on paper, leading to better emotional regulation, enhanced creativity and improved focus.
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