Tricking Myself to Write More

I spent a good amount of time thinking about writing, trying to organize my time to write more, setting up a schedule, and so on. I've been the most productive at writing when I was between jobs. Onboarding, ramping up on my new job, moving cities, building a family, I could never make time for it. I understand why it's important to write and the folks at Farnan Street can explain it better than I can. Writing sometimes feels like rubber duck debugging for your thoughts. Once you have to put something in writing you force yourself to rationalize it.

Not even a few days ago I was talking to my wife about something I learned (if you're curious, it was about learning styles). She fired back a few questions, and I realized that I only grasped the general point the paper was making. I didn't deeply understand it and I tried (poorly) to explain what it was all about. There was a significant delta between how this information was in my mind and how I articulated that.

There is no doubt that writing helps creating a deeper understanding and improves remembering things you read/learn. You just gotta do it. The reason why I got discouraged in the past was because I was looking up to people who either write for a living or share a few very in-depth posts. The connection I did not make was that the first group does it full time and the second group spends a lot of time on it. I am in neither groups BUT I can still write plenty!

So here's how I am tricking myself:

• I added a "thoughts" section on my website
• No "thought" can be more than 5 min reading
• I can write about anything that catches my interest
• They are quick and unrevised
• They are about what I am thinking at that moment in time
• They can build up to a more in-depth post
• Cannot be more than once a day!

They are notes about things I'm revisiting, learning, re-learning, or thinking about. My goal (hope?) is that they can build up to more in-depth analysis on a topic. I'm an eager synoptical reader, I usually pick a few themes for the year that I want to learn about. My resolution was to write about each topic once I complete the program I have in mind (a list of highly rated books that stood the test of time). That is now a stretch goal, while my realistic goal is to continue collecting my thoughts over time.

Let's see how that goes!