Day 19 | Daily Dose of learning
This project is inspired by the ‘100-day project’, a challenge consisting of committing to doing an activity everyday for 100 days.
I have decided to write about one thing I learn everyday for the next 30 days. This can be a skill, a deep concept to elaborate on, or a mere life lesson that made me become aware of something I consider relevant.
The decision is based on the belief that “we are what we repeatedly do”, as Valentin Perez put it.
Just keep writing
Today I do not really know what to write about (or maybe I just do not want to think deeply enough). But I have recently come across a concept that applies to writing. It has to do with establishing the habit of writing instead of just writing whenever you ‘feel like’ doing it.
It is what distinguishes professionals from amateurs, according to James Clear and many productivity savvy.
It’s the idea that professionals do not wait for ‘inspiration’ or ‘motivation’ to write, or produce content in whatever field they are in. They just do it, on a schedule. And it does not matter how many words they write or how good the outcome is. They just write, whatever it is that comes to their mind about the topic at hand.
One way of applying this habit is to committing to writing a certain number of words (at a minimum) every day. This implies that there will be some days in which you really do not feel like writing, but you will write something anyways, regardless of how high-quality the work is. And there will also be some days when you are ‘inspired’ and have a lot to say. In those days you will likely write more than the minimum threshold required by the habit (which is usually a small number,e.g. 500/day, that allows you to ‘just start’ without feeling overwhelmed).
What’s more, this concept relies on the idea that motivation is a myth and that it comes along the way rather than beforehand. Which is another thing separating amateurs from professionals.
James Clear is an example of a person who used the habit of writing everyday regardless of inspiration or motivation and posting 2 articles a week for an extensive period.
Alright, this is about 300 words. I’m done here.