I'm terrified my mind will go stale and run out of ideas. It happens. I can’t control my brain from getting older or weaker. Ideas will stop one day.

I have a routine that I abide to every morning. I wake up, I put coffee to brew in my tiny little red percolator and I start to warm up my mind by doing little sketches, little doodles, nothing worth noting, sometimes I just try to draw straight lines on a paper. Sometimes I’ll draw little monsters and sometimes I’ll sketch out physical store flows from some previous research session. I do this for about 5-10 minutes.

When my coffee is ready, I pour out a cup. Depending on my mood, I might immerse myself in reading for an hour or I might spend it crafting something more involved, or maybe on mornings like today, writing seems to be a better medium.

Since my full-time job is on the digital side of design, it’s not uncommon to sit in front of the computer for 10+ hrs creating some interface, finding a solution to some breakpoint, wireframing some flow, communicating through some digital channel, all digital. Startup jobs is less about ideating and more about pushing.

And so this is why I fear losing out on ideas - because my professional life doesn’t push me to be creative, if anything, it’s anti-creativity. Therefore, every morning before dawn, I’ll pour out my cup of coffee and mingle around with my ideas. I smile as I make another idea come to life.

The best mornings are the unexpected ones.