Quick test: Can you navigate to a familiar place without GPS?
Remember a phone number without checking contacts?
Recall song lyrics without googling?
If you hesitated: your brain is atrophying.
Not dramatically. Quietly. Because tools remember for you now.
I’m a music therapist who can’t remember lyrics anymore. That’s my wake-up call.
What’s yours?
Today in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn:
✔️ How to protect 10 morning minutes that feel like yours (enjoyment over obligation)
✔️ The brutal honesty check: what do your calendar and bank statement actually reveal?
✔️ What London taxi drivers teach us about memory, AI, and skills worth protecting
Doable ideas 💭
Design a 10-minute morning sequence you actually enjoy. Protect it.
Coffee ritual. Stretch. Journal. Music. Whatever.
Not “should do.” Enjoy.
Same sequence daily. Becomes anchor.
This signals: the day is yours first.
This idea is inspired by my recent change in routine since living with my partner – I have been waking up at 5am to suit his schedule and to get some deep work done. No surprise – I felt creative, energetic, and more at peace.
Of course, the “perfect” morning routine would take longer than 10 minutes.
The key here is enjoyement and protection of what makes you feel like yourself.
Reflections 🪞
If I look at my calendar and spending from the last 2 weeks, what do they reveal about my real priorities?
Mindfulness 🧘🏻♀️
I had a painful realisation this week.
I can’t remember song lyrics anymore.
As a music therapist, this is (almost) a crime.
I need to have repertoires in my head.
Lyrics and chord progression in multiple languages.
Again, environment shapes everything:
Why bother remembering the streets when there is Google Map?
Why bother remembering the songs when there is Ultimate Guitar?
Everything is at our fingertips.
Efficient. Effective. But we lost something really crucial.
The London taxi driver test
There’s a reason London taxi drivers have larger hippocampi than the average person.
To get a taxi licence in London, drivers must pass “The Knowledge”—memorising over 25,000 streets and 20,000 landmarks. Takes 3-4 years on average.
No GPS allowed during the test. No maps. Just memory.
Studies show their brains physically change. The hippocampus—the part responsible for spatial memory—grows measurably larger.
Use it, strengthen it. Stop using it, lose it.
We’ve stopped using it
Why would London require this now? We have GPS. We have Google Maps. We have apps that do the thinking.
But here’s what the neuroscience shows: the act of remembering—of holding information, retrieving it, using it—strengthens neural pathways. Builds cognitive reserve. Keeps your brain sharp.
Outsource the remembering, you lose more than the information. You lose the capacity to remember well.
What I’m losing
It’s not just song lyrics and chord progression for me.
I play around with different AIs to write songs with clients, summarise things, and repurpose content to different platforms.
Brilliant for admin work. Genuinely useful. Saves me hours weekly.
But I’ve noticed: I’ve started outsourcing more than admin.
Email drafts. Creative ideas. Problem-solving. Critical thinking.
The line between “AI helps me work faster” and “AI does my thinking for me” has blurred.
What we’re all losing
Memory: not just facts, but the neural pathways that form when you actively remember.
Creativity: the struggle of generating ideas yourself, not prompting AI and choosing from options.
Originality: your unique way of thinking, not the averaged output of language models.
Critical thinking: wrestling with problems yourself before outsourcing to tools.
These aren’t romantic ideals. They’re cognitive skills. And like muscles, they atrophy when unused.
The principle worth protecting
Never outsource a skill you don’t want to lose.
AI summarising session notes so I can write reports faster? Keep that.
Googling song lyrics so I don’t have to remember? That’s costing me something.
AI drafting emails about logistics? Fine.
AI doing my creative thinking? That’s a skill I don’t want to lose.
The line isn’t “use AI” or “don’t use AI.”
It’s: What skills do I want to keep sharp? And am I protecting them?
What I’m doing
Always be a learner.
Lucky for me – my line of work requires me to always learn new songs. Sometimes even to remember trivial things about certain artists so I can strike conversations with clients.
As you might know, I’m learning Spanish and handstand. Recently got back to learning scooter after a nasty fall last year.
There’s so much in life to explore.
Keep your brain active.
Your turn
Look at how you’re using AI right now.
Are you using AI to work smarter? Or to avoid thinking harder?
Are you saving time for what matters? Or just making everything easier?
Are you keeping your critical thinking sharp? Or letting it atrophy because tools are convenient?
What skills are you losing without noticing?
London taxi drivers spend years memorising streets they could just Google. Seems inefficient.
But their brains grow stronger because of it.
What are you willing to struggle with to keep your brain strong?
Ideas Worth Pondering 🧠
…you retire on your memories. When you’re too frail to do much of anything else, you can still look back on the life you’ve lived and experience immense pride, joy, and the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia.
– Bill Perkins, Die With Zero
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