When I was a young writer in college, working for the newspaper, I learned that sometimes the hardest part of writing a story was simply figuring out how to begin.
I would sit at my typewriter, staring at a blank page, frustrated because I couldn’t find the right lead. I knew there was a story there. I just couldn’t figure out how to get into it.
Then I discovered a trick that has stayed with me for years.
I started keeping a notepad and pen beside my bed. Every now and then, I would wake in the middle of the night with a thought—a possible lead, a better way to frame a story, a sentence that suddenly made everything click. I would reach for the notepad, write it down and go back to sleep.
Before long, I was doing it regularly. I discovered that my brain seemed to keep working on problems even after I had stopped consciously thinking about them.
Eventually, I began using the same technique for more than writing. If I had a problem during the day, a difficult decision to make or a challenge I knew was coming the next morning, I would think about it before going to sleep. Sometimes the answer would arrive in the middle of the night.
These days, of course, I don’t keep a notepad beside my bed. I have something much more convenient: my phone.
When I wake up and can’t get back to sleep, I no longer lie there frustrated, watching the clock and wishing I could drift off again. Instead, I tell myself, “OK. It’s time to go to work. The night shift has started.”
I think about the problems I’m facing, the questions I need to answer and the challenges waiting for me the next day. Sometimes I record my thoughts into my phone. In the morning, I listen back to some of those midnight revelations and have to laugh. Occasionally, they make little sense at all.
But sometimes they do.
And that’s the beauty of the night shift. It turns a sleepless night into productive time. It reminds me that our minds keep working even when we think we’ve punched out for the day.
The next time you wake up at 2AM with a problem on your mind, don’t necessarily fight it. Maybe your night shift has just begun.
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