Tag Archives: writing

Writing Better: Why I choose to write in public

I have been writing a blog post every day up until the end of the year with the goal of improving my writing skills. The reason I started doing this was because I realised that I was not a very ‘correct’ writer; my writing had a lot of grammatical errors, and didn’t flow very nicely. I am very bullish on the value of being able to communicate well, it is one of the most characteristics that almost all successful people share. I am a natural talker (although this definitely needs work as well), but writing was letting me down, so I decided to practice it. I didn’t just want to write something for myself every day because I knew I wouldn’t do it, I wanted to practice in public. I got the idea of this from David Perell and it was a game changer for me. The pressure of knowing (hoping) that other people would read my writing naturally made me be more thoughtful about what I wrote, and put more effort into it.

When I started I was following the thought process which has been promoted by many people who are in the business of creating content, be it books, youtube videos, blogs, etc. That is, the mindset of “your first 100 pieces of writing are not going to be good anyway, so don’t try to perfect each blog post, just write, and accept that it won’t be good.” This was great in helping me form a habit of writing every day, which is arguably one of the hardest things about writing. I also think it helped me think more creatively in general; I had to write something, so I had to have an idea, not the other way around. If I had waited for an idea to come to be so I could write about it spontaneously, I would have written a grand total of 3-4 blog posts, and none of them would have been great.

I know that I haven’t written any blog posts that have been amazing, some are definitely more interesting than others, and some are flat out boring, but throughout the process, I have felt writing come easier and easier, which is conducive to writing more, which will result in improvements. Or will it?

One of my friends raised the point that he had some issues with the “just produce a lot of content” idea of improvement, because it means you become comfortable with producing bad work, rather than aiming for higher quality work. I realised I didn’t have a comeback remark to this, and it made me think whether my writing has actually improved. I just looked back at my first blog post of the 50 days and was expecting to be embarrassed by it, but it was actually quite good, and incidentally, my most liked blog post. I compared it to a recent blog post explaining cryptocurrency and I struggle to see where I have improved. This is a bit disheartening but I think it’s important to always try assess yourself to see if your efforts are actually paying off, and simply putting up a blog every day without too much regard for quality doesn’t seem to be working for me. So whats the plan?

I still want to improve my writing ability, so what I plan on doing is upping the level of ‘public’ I go. Currently I just upload every blog to my website, and share the occasional one to LinkedIn where I have a few friends and other people in the area of exercise physiology. I don’t have any of my supervisors or other people I would want to impress on there. So to help me improve my writing, I’m going to add all of those people I look up to on LinkedIn, as well as begin sharing my posts to Twitter, or even write tweet-storms about thoughts I’m having. I’ve told myself a million times I should not be worried about what other people think about my work, or me in general. Beginning to post more to these channels will be one way to achieve both goals, improving my writing, and getting out of my comfort zone.

Do we really need deadlines?

At the end of a brutal interval running session I was thinking, “I should set myself some deadlines for getting X done.” I thought to myself, why, if doing X is something I enjoy, should I set myself a deadline if there is no external reason it needs to be done at a certain time. This whole idea goes against my whole notion of productivity and I thought I’d challenge myself to write a blog post essentially playing the devils advocate against myself.

There are a few assumptions I’m going to spell out first, I’m assuming that the task you’re doing is not an assignment or any other task which is ‘due’ at a certain date. This automatically disqualifies a lot of scenarios, this post is about work we tell ourselves we ‘want’ to be doing. If we want to do something, it should get done in our free time, it should be something we enjoy doing, therefore, doesn’t need a deadline.

What does having a deadline do to something we enjoy? First of all, I think deadlines create pressure on ourselves, which can be a very good thing, challenging us to get things done more efficiently, so we have more time to do other things we enjoy blah blah blah, you’ve heard the spiel a thousand times. Deadlines create pressure which can turn things we genuinely enjoy, into tasks we have to do and I’ve never met anyone who loves to HAVE to do something. Furthermore, if it is a creative task we are doing, deadlines create a very end-product focussed lens at which colours the way we see our work. Anything that we enjoy doing, creative or otherwise, should be enjoyed for the love of undertaking the task, not completing it. The endpoint is not the goal, the endpoint is merely a consequence of the goal, enjoy doing the task. Simply having a deadline inevitably makes the endpoint the goal.

Deadlines can mean ironically nothing gets finished. Many times I’m sure we’ve all not done something because it wasn’t quite right in the end and we weren’t happy with it, or that we didn’t think we would be able to produce something perfect, so we produce nothing at all. This is so common, especially when we are attempting new things, we must learn by trial and error. Our first 100 of anything will be bad, it is only after that we begin to get good at whatever it is we’re doing. This is precisely the reason why I’ve challenged myself to post a blog every day, because it forces me to get the first 100 out of the way without trying to make each post perfect. It’s an unreasonable expectation to be able to produce something perfect without practicing. Imagine you’re in a pottery class and there are two groups of people, one group who get told they have a month to work on one pot, and they can spend as much time as they want on it, the other group is forced to make many pots, at least a pot each day, who do you think will produce a better pot in the end? I know I would learn so much by making many many pots, much more than if I were to make one ‘perfect’ pot. The same applies to any skill, by setting deadlines, you create the internal expectation that something needs to be perfected by a certain time, lending itself to group one, spending a lot of time on one pot, not learning through trial and error.

So what is the solution? I believe rather than setting deadlines, you should simply set time goals for doing the thing. This shouldn’t be too much of a shift, rather than saying, “I want to have written an essay on X in 2 weeks time”, tell yourself you want to spend 20mins writing, every day. You can always spend more time if you’re in the zone, but 20 minutes is something we can all find somewhere in our days.

Writing this was an interesting experience and I’m sure that reading this back you can see me convincing myself that this was the right way to be, and I came out with a conclusion of what I actually do, even though at the start I thought this was going against my beliefs. It is interesting to pick a counterpoint to a belief or set of beliefs you hold closely and try to fight for it, it solidifies your understanding of where you really stand on the view. Give it a try, I really enjoyed doing it.

My New Morning Routine

After several months of having little control over my time, I have decided to make the most of not being at work full time. I thought long and hard how I wanted to start my day, and came up with: twenty minutes of meditation just after I wake up, forty minutes of reading and thirty minutes of writing. This takes an hour and a half and I think I could fit it in even when I start honours and am going into ‘work’ five days a week. So why was this the schedule I came up with?

Twenty minutes of meditation (6 am)

I have liked the idea of making a habit of meditating for almost a year now but I thought deep down that it was a waste of time, because you aren’t ‘doing’ or achieving anything by doing it. I’m not sure when the switch flicked but once I finished placement I meditated for an hour every day for a week. I soon realised that this was a very long time to meditate and I simply couldn’t stop myself getting distracted during it. I cut the time back to twenty minutes and have done that every day for the two weeks since. I’ve really enjoyed meditating, I am using Sam Harris’ ‘Waking Up’ app, which is pretty pricey but undoubtedly worth it. I was always resistant to the idea of meditating because of the religious and spiritual connotations but Sam walks you through it very agnostically and this really had me hooked.

Forty minutes of reading (6:20 am)

I love reading and I read every night before going to bed. Reading at night is very different to reading at any other point in the day. It is meant to relax you, give your mind a rest and ultimately put you to sleep. I’ve often been so excited by what I’m reading that I struggle to go to bed, defeating the purpose of reading in the first place! I decided to read in the morning because there is so much I want to read and my current 30minutes isn’t letting me read as much as i’d like. Reading in the morning also has the benefit that it doesn’t have to be strictly ‘enjoyable’ and can involve journal articles and other more didactic works. I’ve decided it might be a good idea to have, every week or fortnight, a new topic to read up on and familiarise myself. By doing this, in theory I’ll be well versed in at least 26 different topics by the end of the year, which sounds ridiculous, but is actually very achievable. I’m not too sure what these topics will be just yet, but I’m going to start planning this the week before (ie. now) and then every Sunday, review what I learned in a blog post; consolidating my newly attained knowledge.

Thirty minutes of writing (7am)

Writing is something I’ve enjoyed doing throughout the later years of high school and university although it was my least favourite thing to do prior to year 10. I was convinced I simply couldn’t write creatively and I hated it, until a teacher convinced me I could make myself a better writer. That is exactly what I did and my year 12 creative writing piece was then used as an example for other classes. Throughout university I fell out of practice and my essays were always okay and would get good marks but they were never amazing. I noticed probably a year ago when studying for the GAMSAT that my punctuation was absolutely shocking and this made me realise that I need to start some deliberate practice. I remember sitting down for the first time to write a blog post and had the classic writers block and couldn’t think to write anything. I had this several times in the first week of writing every day but since pushing through that, I’ve had no issues writing; a testament to the idea from Seth Godin that practice is what breeds creativity, not the other way round. So i’ve decided to practice every day and see what comes of it, if nothing else I’ll improve my writing.

This is a routine that will definitely change overtime, especially once I go back to university full time, but one of my goals for 2020 is to keep time reserved for doing what I want, even when I’m most busy; these are the things I want to continue doing.

Spend your time where it matters

I’ve begun setting aside an hour every morning I’m not up early for work or placement working on the things that are important to me. I started doing this a week ago because I realised that I was just getting overwhelmed with my work for uni and wasn’t spending any time doing what I actually want to do. I set aside the first hour of the morning, before I start the urgent work which is my university study.

This concept came to me in one of Ali Abdaal’s email newsletters where he discussed this matrix.

It is so easy to get swept up in your ‘urgent work’ which seems to be ever expanding, I didn’t like that. The beauty of the urgent work is that it always gets done, as anyone who has done an assignment last minute knows.

This impelled me to sit down and figure out my “important, not urgent” tasks and start doing them at the start of every day. This is when I decided to write 50 blogs in 50 days, because writing is an area I want to improve in, and all that takes is practice. I do this every day I’m not at placement because sleep one of my highest priorities, and not worth compromising.

I feel it is so important that I spend my time where I truly want to and this was another way to do this.

A Journal: the world’s cheapest psychologist

To me, journalling was always something teenagers did on TV, that was, until about a year ago when I downloaded a journaling app called Day One.

Since then I’ve journaled on and off, when I’m journaling consistently I notice myself thinking clearer, more complete thoughts. Going through the day I’m constantly distracted and will always have fleeting thoughts which excite me, and usually ends up as a brief note which disappears into the void of my notes app. Journaling isn’t a solution to that problem, I dont journal for productivity per sè. I journal to improve my thought and mental health, it provides a platform to discuss my problems open and honestly with myself.

My brain uses the pen or keyboard as a mouthpiece for everything that is simmering, the low level stressors which sit below your level of consciousness. These issues arent any more noticeable than an uncomfortable chair; you shift positions unconsciously several times and next thing you know 5 hours has gone past and your back is in agony. You dont notice the effect that these low level stressors have on your life until its too late. Journalling is a chance for accessible introspection which allows you to draw these stressors into your consciousness, and problem solve them, every day, before they become a problem.

The beauty of a journal which doesnt get seen by anyone else is that it doesnt require any thought going into it, you dont need proper grammer, neat handwriting and most importantly, you can share your deepest thoughts in there, without judgement.

When I’m journalling, I like to get it done as quick as possible. Taking inspiration from Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones I have been using my journal to do morning pages, essentially a stream of consciousness for 5-10mins where you don’t stop to edit anything, you just let your brain go where it wants to. the beauty of this is three fold:

  1. Its quick
  2. Theres no pressure to produce something good, a common problem for perfectionists
  3. After some practice, your brain will go to the areas it needs to work out, and your problems will rise to the surface and you’ll often come up with an solution without even knowing it

I think a final very important point is that i’ve found you dont need to do it every day, but trying to do it a few times a week i’ve noticed a lot of benefit, and if i’m ever feeling stressed or have a problem i’m not sure how to fix, I’ll sit down and write it out, and more often than not i’ll leave that 10mins with much more clarity than I began with.

I’d definitely recommend giving it a try, even if you aren’t convinced it would help you, try doing it a few times a week for 2-3 weeks and I guarantee you’ll find yourself thinking through problems clearer and not letting those low level stressors affect your relationships, study or life more generally.

Committing to Passive Income

Just finished watching Ali Abdaal’s video on youtube about his salary as a doctor and youtuber and it has really triggered me off to really start committing some time to developing some sources of passive income. A pact I made to myself years ago as a teenager was that my ‘day job’ was never going to by my sole source of income, because as Ali mentioned, you are then choosing to be doing what you do and are never forced to do it, leading to you enjoying it a lot more.

I have delved into the world of content creation previously, I’ve created viral Tik Tok videos for March On, a charity focusing on spinal cord injuries (@march_on_aus). More recently I’ve also started a podcast by myself essentially for my other work, Running Science, a running store in Sydney (runningscience.com.au/podcast) . The goal of the podcast is to make running more accessible to the general public, as well as making it seem more inclusive than it does currently in Australia.

My biggest goal in life is to get people healthier, by exercising more. I want to do this through research but also health promotion. My dream ‘day job’ is to work with the UN or WHO to increase physical activity on a global scale. How I plan to achieve this is by doing a PhD and being an excellent researcher. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t want this to be my primary source of income so what do I do? Currently I’m doing a lot of 1:1, Time:money work and I want to move away from that.

Below I’m going to list my ideas and how I can start actioning them:

  • EP Network – A friend from Uni and I saw a deficiency in how well known exercise physiologists are, so we decided to create a youtube channel to a) inform the world about what we do through educational videos, and b) help inform individuals about how easy exercise can be and how significant the benefits are.
    • ACTION: Currently we have been writing down scripts in Lockdown with evidence, as soon as we are out we have to start bulk filming these base video’s.
  • Instagram Page – I have previously been against using my personal instagram page for promotion, but I’m using it less for communicating with friends and more for just putting pretty pictures up currently. This is an opportunity to start growing and audience and building a personal brand which is incredibly important.
    • ACTION: slowly start sharing more and more of my own content on there, from the podcast, March On instagram and EP Network.
  • Writing – Writing is a passion of mine, I really enjoy it and love the idea of writing, I’m beginning to practise it more and more and hopefully get better and better. This could lead to me writing a book one day, continuing to write blog posts about my life and my work, and how that can provide value to people.
    • ACTION: Write consistent blog posts (1 per week), research how to spread blog posts and how this can grow.

This has been a good piece to write, I find by writing this in a public domain, I’m more likely to take these actions seriously and use them more going forward. I’m going to stick to these and see where it can take me.