In this solo advice video, TJ Walker presents a single, ultra‑simple habit designed to boost creativity and focus: turn your phone completely off, go for a walk (ideally one hour, but any duration from 4 to 60 minutes works), and bring a paper notepad and pen. He explains that the purpose of the walk isn’t exercise but “unaccompanied thinking” – giving the mind idle time to process ideas, similar to how shower thoughts arise when we’re free from digital distractions. The notepad is essential because it captures fleeting insights before they evaporate, and the act of writing by hand reinforces memory. Walker acknowledges the initial discomfort of resisting the phone and the urge to fill silence, describing it as a sign the mind is coming off autopilot. He advises persisting through the first awkward minutes, protecting the time fiercely, and keeping the phone truly off (not just silenced). He also argues against using a phone for note‑taking, noting that opening a device instantly pulls attention to external messages. The overall message is that a modest, consistent daily practice of unplugged walking with handwritten notes can expand the mental “shower” space, leading to more ideas, better focus, and a habit of generating rather than consuming content.
Chapters
Ultimize. I'm going to give you the most valuable tactic in this entire series right now, and I need you to promise not to be disappointed by how simple it sounds. Here it is: for 1 hour a day, turn your phone completely off, go for a walk, and bring a notepad and a pen. I know it sounds crazy. It is possible. The world will get along without you for an hour. And if an hour is too much, Okay, try 30 minutes, try 10 minutes, try anything, but I want you to give it a try because that's it. That's the tactic. So there's no app, there's no subscription, no equipment beyond paper and something to walk on. I can feel some of you deflating from here. Stay with me because the simplicity is the disguise. Let's start with what that hour is actually for because it isn't Exercise. The walking is almost incidental. The hour is for something you may not have experienced in a genuinely long time— unaccompanied thinking. Your own thoughts in your own head with no incoming signal. Most of us haven't been properly alone with our minds in years, and we barely noticed it happening. Every elevator ride, Every line at the pharmacy, every red light, the phone comes out. Not for anything important, just to fill the silence. And every one of those little moments used to be where thinking happened, where creativity happened. Here's why that matters for creativity specifically. Ideas need idle time the way bread needs the oven. The ingredients can all be present. But nothing happens without the unglamorous stretch where it just sits there. Your mind works on things in the background when you give it nothing else to do. Everyone already knows this from experience. The good ideas famously show up in the shower, and it's not because of the water. It's because the shower is one of the last places your phone can't follow you. At least it doesn't for most people. This hour simply builds you a bigger shower, one with scenery. Now, about the notepad, because it's not optional, and I want to be direct about why. The notepad transforms the walk from a nice wellness break into a creative act. Without it, an idea arrives, feels brilliant, and poof, evaporates before your home. Everyone knows the particular grief of the forgotten shower thought. With it, you're capturing raw material, and something subtle happens when you walk with a notepad. You start looking for ideas because you've got somewhere to put them. The tool creates the behavior. A person carrying a fishing rod looks at a lake differently than a person carrying a towel. Let me set expectations for the early going, because the first sessions can be genuinely uncomfortable. Boring! Imagine someone on day 1 of this habit. They turn the phone off, they're 10 minutes into the walk, and their hand has already drifted toward their pocket 3 times, reaching for a device that isn't there. By minute 20, they're mentally drafting a strong case for why this is silly. That restlessness isn't a sign the tactic is failing. That's the sign of a mind coming off autopilot, and it passes. Usually somewhere in the back half of the walk, the noise settles, and underneath it you find there was thinking waiting to happen the whole time. And what lands in the notepad doesn't need to be profound. Write down all of it. A better way to organize the garage, A line that might become a poem, a doodle, something you want to cook, a question you can't answer. The notepad is not a literary artifact. It's a net, and nets don't apologize for what they catch. Some days you'll come home with 6 ideas, some days with a grocery list and a drawing. Both are wins because the harvest was never really the point. The hour itself is the point, or if you insist, the 30 minutes or 15 minutes, but ideally 60 minutes a day where you're the one generating, not consuming. One practical note: if full hour genuinely can't happen every day, as I mentioned, take the 30 or 40 minutes you can get and protect it fiercely. An imperfect daily walk beats a perfect imaginary one. But one aim for the hour: phone fully off. Not silenced, but off. Not face down, off. And not on your body, because the difference between off and away from you and merely quiet turns out to be the difference between borrowing your attention back and actually owning it. Next session, we take the same spirit of small deliberate choices And point it at the people around you, starting with a single word that opens more creative doors than any tool ever built. One final word on the phone. I know you may be thinking, well, TJ, I like to take notes on my phone. I'll just use my phone on the walk to take notes because I can't really read my handwriting. I don't like to write. Ha! I use that argument myself. I don't like to read my own handwriting. Guess what? The sheer act of writing a note on a pad makes it easier to remember later, even if you can't read your own handwriting. The problem with telling yourself, I'm just taking my phone along to write down my creative thoughts, is the second you open that phone, you see a text. Could be important, could be work, could be a family member. You're lost. You're now focused on Other people's ideas. So, I'm begging you, even if you start off with a 4-minute walk a day, leave your phone at home, go for a walk, and take a notepad.
