Some musings on writing every day for over a year:
1. I write around 6am-8:30am each morning before leaving for work. This 8:30am deadline is a blessing in disguise as it forces me to focus deeply for a solid 2-2.5 hours in order to craft an article from start to finish.
1. I write around 6am-8:30am each morning before leaving for work. This 8:30am deadline is a blessing in disguise as it forces me to focus deeply for a solid 2-2.5 hours in order to craft an article from start to finish.
2. When I first started, I feared that I wouldn't have enough ideas to write about. But once I started writing daily I became more observant in my everyday life as I was always on the watch for something interesting to write about. Now I have a backlog of 100+ article ideas.
3. Daily writing leads to clearer thinking. Writing forces you to express ideas and thoughts in ways that an audience can understand. It forces you to clear up any gaps in your own thinking.
4. The more I write, the more I embrace the mentality of "screw it, ship it." Taking an article from 0/10 to 9/10 might take 2 hours. Taking it from 9/10 to 9.5/10 might take days. The only way to publish something daily is to ship the 9/10s and avoid perfectionism.
5. I used to sleep in and scroll aimlessly on my phone for hours on Saturday mornings. Now Saturday mornings are my favorite part of the week when I get to write in mostly empty coffee shops from 6am - 9am, just enjoying the silence, the coffee, and the sunrise.
6. Daily writing has attracted new readers each day. Last May when I started writing daily I had 15,000 pageviews and earned $18.75 from blogging. Last month (July 2018) I had 74,000 pageviews and earned $1,044 from blogging. This daily writing has led to a serious income stream.
