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Write every day

mlafeldt.github.io

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Re: Write every day

#71

Post by jkaunisv1 »

atomroflbomber wrote: post #3

This reminds me about an idea I had but never really followed: For all you writers out there, do you think a device with an e-ink display and a normal keyboard, similar to a laptop, but designed for the sole purpose of distraction free writing, is something consumers might want? I always wondered why this does not exist.

I'm not even much of a writer, but I want this for general computer use. Battery life and heat generation would be way better. If the Kindle's web browser was a bit better and the device came with a native text editor, I would use it as my general computing device. I want this so badly.

Re: Write every day

#72

Post by tedks »

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 wish there was an easy way to avoid feeling guilty when you see other people's achievements.

The easiest thing is to be able to look at the achievements you have, and say truthfully, "maybe if I put my mind to it I could bike across India, but I like what I've done more and I'm better at it than I could be at anything else."

That said, spending probably an hour a day on the entire project, you could probably spend ten-minute blocks of writing (250 words in 10 minutes seems totally doable), language learning (I spend 20 minutes a day between duolingo and memrise), exercise (7 minute workout plus stretching), and other skills that are easily parceled into small chunks.

Doing this alone won't make you great, but it'll be a baseline and a foundation you continue to lay. You can build on that.

Re: Write every day

#73

Post by rgoddard »

npsimons wrote: post #65
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…

Also related is differentiating between the things you want to happen or change vs things you want to change your self.

We are surrounded by problems and it can be easy to become bogged down trying/wanting to solve them all yourselves. Realize you are not alone, that many other people are also working to solve those problems. Try to focus on finding the problems that you can solve and that you want to solve.

Re: Write every day

#74

Post by mareofnight »

ahmad19526 wrote: post #69

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…

Critique groups and beta readers?

Re: Write every day

#75

Post by KhalilK »

baby wrote: post #67
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.

J'aime bien!

What technologies did you use?

Re: Write every day

#76

Post by obstacle1 »

ahmad19526 wrote: post #69

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…

>But I also know believe that "Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect".

I'd reconsider that position for a number of reasons. Not the least of which being that it is a logical contradiction.

Nobody is born knowing how to practice things. This is something we learn as we acquire skills, learn about goals, learn how to channel our energies towards meeting said goals, etc.

Thus practice is itself a skill that requires practice to develop.

Since our practicing of practicing will necessarily not be perfect, we will not be "practicing practicing perfectly". So we will never achieve the state of "perfect practice", and thus we will never be able to make our practicing "perfect".

Thus the statement "perfect practice makes perfect" becomes equivalent to "perfection is impossible, since we can never achieve perfect practice".

In my experience people who think like this end up paralyzing themselves with doubt and never produce anything of value -- not because they are incapable, but because they think themselves into a cage of inaction. They become so terrified of not doing things in the "correct" or "perfect" way that they just end up doing nothing at all.

You can't practice anything perfectly, as you unwittingly proved, so just do something. If you require external feedback to validate your work, put your work out publicly and feedback will come. The process is write -> publish -> critique -> polish, not become perfect writer -> publish -> everyone loves me.

Re: Write every day

#77

Post by dbtc »

peterkelly wrote: post #66
mdda wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Perhaps not the most glamorous phrasing, but I think what you just described is the essence (and power) of gamification.

Re: Write every day

#78

Post by sepeth »

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…

In a different subject, there was this comment that I like:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8323556

Re: Write every day

#79

Post by seanflyon »

peterkelly wrote: post #66
mdda wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This only works if you value your github streak number/commit stats. "measure your self-worth by" implies that all other values are secondary, which would just be silly.

Re: Write every day

#80

Post by seanflyon »

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 think the point of "do X every day" is getting over the physiological hurdle of starting something. If you want to write more but find yourself watching TV all evening because you fell burnt out from working all day. Maybe you should be relaxing in front of the TV, but you are in a better position to make that decision once you have force your self to get over the initial hurdle by writing n words. That n should be sufficiently small that if if are burnt out and want to back to relaxing you have not overly burdened yourself, but you will likely find many occasions when you want to keep writing because its something you would rather do than watch TV.
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