Lessons Learned - So Far

Thursday and day 10 of my self-imposed challenge to write something every day for 30 consecutive days.

When announcing this challenge, I did not commit to actually posting the finished product, however I have so far done so and suspect I will continue to do so.

My reason for setting myself this challenge was to the practice the habit of regular writing. It was to feel the difficulty, the pressure that comes with producing something each and every day.

I was also interested to see if it became easier, more instinctive, more intuitive as each day passed.

What I have realised so far is it has become harder, but not in the way I imagined.

I thought I would run out of ideas, run out of topics to write about.

The reality has been quite different, and this is surprisingly much harder.

As each day passes, I have more and more ideas present for an article.

In the first few days it was easier – one idea, one article.

With an ever-increasing number of daily ideas comes a need to prioritise based on what might interest me or what I feel most strongly about.

I find myself starting an article on one topic, abandoning it and moving to another, and then another. The idea for this article materialised today after having started (and abandoned) 4 articles all of quite diverse topics.

I had a lunch meeting today with a colleague (and friend) some 20 years my junior. We discussed a number of things including treating the brain as a muscle. The more it is exercised, the better it becomes and specifically, targeted exercise, targets specific areas of improvement.

Perhaps I am experiencing evidence of this.

In just 10 days, my awareness of potential writing ideas is much sharper than it was, much, much sharper.

The variety of approaches that can be taken to an article covering one topic has grown, the different angles, conclusion and even challenges has grown tenfold. The result is each article taking far longer than the last, and not necessarily with a better quality outcome.

I appreciated the feedback that has been provided, the good and the constructive.

One area where my writing “exercise” has not improved is proof reading. Spelling errors and grammatical short comings continue to flow through to my initial posts.

A huge thank you to Toula Ainalis for her daily diligence and gentle feedback as to what can be “improved”. My objective over the remainder of this challenge is to have at least one article with no corrections. Much appreciated Toula.

My goal for the next 5 days is to better assess my ideas and make a single decision as to the day’s topic and then to stick to it no matter what.