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Write every day

mlafeldt.github.io

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Re: Write every day

#61

Post by donniezazen »

shubhamjain wrote: post #27

Code everyday, contribute to open source, write n words everyday, read books everyday, exercise, learn new skills, market yourself, socialize, travel. Is there an end? I am surrounded by so many productive activities and each one within my reach that each time I am not doing it, it feels I am frittering away very valuable time. In fact, even when I am doing it like reading a book, I feel working on my mini-game could…

The only way to not feel guilty is to drop desire to do what other folks are doing or have done. Important thing is being able to create a space for you to enjoy something that you want to do for love of it.

Re: Write every day

#62

Post by overload119 »

I've read similar posts about writing everyday, and I decided to pick it up a little over a year ago.

I quickly realized that as a student my day's were simply not that interesting and my entries looked more and more like "went to school. studied. went home. slept."

Instead I started writing every week.

This is much more manageable and forces you to take time to reflect on your life. I look forward to writing every week.

I now have the last year of my life documented in these entries (by the way, I create a filter and email them to myself with the subject line Write: MM/DD/YYYY) and it's SO rewarding to go back and read them. It really doesn't take that long - maybe less than 30 minutes per entry.

I would highly recommend it.

Re: Write every day

#63

Post by Kaihuang724 »

wiremine wrote: post #33
shubhamjain wrote: post #27

Code everyday, contribute to open source, write n words everyday, read books everyday, exercise, learn new skills, market yourself, socialize, travel. Is there an end? I am surrounded by so many productive activities and each one within my reach that each time I am not doing it, it feels I am frittering away very valuable time. In fact, even when I am doing it like reading a book, I feel working on my mini-game could…

I second this: reading all this can create a sense of guilt. I think for myself, the key is knowing that the guy who biked across India wasn't writing a novel. Or at least, he wasn't biking across India, writing a novel, and maintaining a 40+ hour job and raising a family. I'm a husband, father of two kids, am involved in my church, and own a house with a yard. So, "contributing to open source" and "writing every day…

> Bottom line: it starts with knowing your own personal bandwidth limits, and knowing your prioritizes. Then backfill with the rest.

I agree with this. All these articles about doing X number of things in order to be productive really are just ideas. They are ideas that you may or may not incorporate depending on what is beneficial for yourself.

I work out and stretch every morning, and have recently started to write and read a little bit before I get to work. I don't do these things so I can tell other people about my accomplishments or my awesome rituals. I do these things because they help me throughout my day. Stretching and working out gives me more energy while writing in the morning helps organize my thoughts for the day.

Re: Write every day

#64

Post by vitamen »

ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #52
sireat wrote: post #13

I will prove a counterexample to this point. I used 750words for almost a year but ultimately stopped by accident and have not been back since. The "do not break the chain" mechanism kept me going, but there were days when I had trouble filling out the word count. In the end I stopped, because it was a hassle and I did not see myself progressing in skill. Maybe if you have a clear goal in mind like writing a book wit…

I think the 750 words method is more of a morning brain dump than a tool to improve the technique of your writing.

I use it as a brain dump to think about what I want to write, and it seems to work. I write better when I have a decent plan about what I want to write, and I use 750 words to work through that plan. At 10-11 minutes for an entry, it's not a big commitment and it pays large dividends. That said, writing at 750words.com for me is different than "real" writing.

Re: Write every day

#65

Post by npsimons »

shubhamjain wrote: post #27

Code everyday, contribute to open source, write n words everyday, read books everyday, exercise, learn new skills, market yourself, socialize, travel. Is there an end? I am surrounded by so many productive activities and each one within my reach that each time I am not doing it, it feels I am frittering away very valuable time. In fact, even when I am doing it like reading a book, I feel working on my mini-game could…

You might find this amusing:

http://jezebel.com/every-healthy-morning-habit-you-should-ad...

Please forgive the Gawker media owned link; it's worth it.

On a more serious note, this also can be applied to the #YouCanLearnAnything campaign. Sure, it's a positive message, and probably true, but what to learn? I sympathize; what I've found helps is starting with two realizations:

1) The possibilities are quite literally endless; don't tell yourself you can't, because it's probably not true.

2) The one certain limitation is time.

With those two things in mind, it comes down to one question: what do you want to do with what time you have?

More deeply: what is important to you? How can you best achieve it? Is your scope to small? Good, you'll finish it fast. Is your scope too large? Try breaking it down, and realize you're only human. Anyone can change, but most people won't. Don't try to change everything at once; start small and keep focused on your long term goals.

I wish I could do significant research, contribute more to open source, build a business, etc. As it is, I'm too busy coding at the day job, and all my other time is eaten up by training for search and rescue and practicing for musical performances. I'm lucky I got time to setup a self-hosted cloud for the wife's new tablet this weekend. But those are the choices I've made, and I'm mostly happy with them.

Re: Write every day

#66

Post by peterkelly »

mdda wrote: post #44
shubhamjain wrote: post #27

Code everyday, contribute to open source, write n words everyday, read books everyday, exercise, learn new skills, market yourself, socialize, travel. Is there an end? I am surrounded by so many productive activities and each one within my reach that each time I am not doing it, it feels I am frittering away very valuable time. In fact, even when I am doing it like reading a book, I feel working on my mini-game could…

Here's how to kill two birds with one (gamified) stone : If you host your static blog on GitHub Pages, you'll get a 'contribution' point for every day you post (or even commit) to it. Thus building up your GitHub streak, and post count/size consistently.

Caveat: This only works if you measure your self-worth by your github streak number/commit stats

Re: Write every day

#67

Post by baby »

KhalilK wrote: post #12

I have been using http://750words.com/ for quite some time now. Writing first thing in the morning is easier to get accustomed to.

I wrote my own application in french since 750w was charged after a month: www.3pages.fr it got pretty famous in France.

Re: Write every day

#68

Post by chipsa »

smokel wrote: post #17

I agree that writing is good exercise. However, it seems that some people think that achieving a high word count is a good thing. Please try to use as few words as possible to get your ideas across. See this as a friendly gesture to your audience, saving them time. Obviously, this does not hold for novels and fiction, where the reader actually likes to read. Perhaps I am a bit misguided in thinking that (technical) b…

"I didn't have time to write a short letter, so instead I wrote a long one."

Re: Write every day

#69

Post by ahmad19526 »

I'm now going back to my daily writing routine that I've scantily kept up with. But I have some concerns. How does one improve their quality of writing when they are not at school? What I mean is, I can write, write, write and I know after a period of time I'll "better" than I was before. But without having people who scrutinize your work, who critique your grammar, and do all the things that teachers used to do for us in our school years, we might only be able to get so good before we plateau. Am I wrong about this? How do you know you're writing "correctly" if you don't have the feedback mechanism that we had in our schooling days -- aka grades, peer reviews, draft 1, draft 2, etc etc...

I plan on writing for myself and for my blog. But I also know believe that "Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect".

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