You can rarely have both.
At the start of this month I tried writing every day, but I can’t do it.
More importantly, I feel I shouldn’t do it.
I believed by forcing myself to write every day I’d naturally improve, but after two weeks, the pressure to write every day, without fail, was forcing me to churn words out that I felt were a compromise on quality.
I was inspired by Seth Godin’s recent piece on “streaks” – where he’s written over 3,000 posts over the course of his blog. Very few people can claim to have that level of stamina for writing.
But I am not trying to be Seth Godin. I am trying to write to articulate my thoughts more clearly, to help me form my own thoughts, and hopefully to share any lessons I learn with others.
So far, by trying to write every day, I’ve learnt something valuable – that it doesn’t encourage me to do my best work.
Instead, I’m going to change my goal – try to write more, but try to write better, longer, more thoughtful pieces.
My new goals for writing:
- Go deeper.
- Don’t try to write every day.
- Spend more time thinking, before the writing.
- Once a week > once a day.
- Read what I write. Edit. Read again. Publish.
I also took some time to update the look and feel of the site. I love the Ghost platform for blogging, but I was frustrated to still be using essentially a default theme.
Great design is near and dear to my heart – it runs through everything in my life – so I don’t wish for any part of public presence to look substandard.
I can still do a whole lot better with the design of my site, but for now I’ve taken a few cues from the latest updates to the GoSquared brand, including using the wonderful Inter typeface, and working on a stylised version of my initials for the first time.
I treat this site as a test bed for my design, writing, and for sharing my thoughts. I hope you’ll like what’s to come.