How I’ve been sticking to my writing habit
I set out at the beginning of the year with a goal of writing more. While I didn’t want to put a lot of pressure around this goal or create strict deadlines for myself, I did commit to writing and hitting publish every week (regardless of the day or time).
So far, this approach has been going pretty well. I’ve published roughly one blog post or essay a week, and I’ve been building a habit of jotting down my ideas when they pop up in my mind.
In celebration of sticking to something for a month, I thought I’d share what’s helped me keep up with my writing habit:
Using Notion as my content calendar and content manager
I’m a project management tool nerd, and over a year ago, I decided to try Notion to keep track of things in my life outside of work. As part of that, I’ve used Notion as a content calendar and content manager for my blog. (If you haven’t heard of Notion, I recommend trying it out. There’s a little bit of a learning curve at first but it’s very aesthetically pleasing.)
I created a fresh Notion database for my 2023 content calendar. What I love about Notion is I can create blog post templates that capture everything I want to include for a post (down to the Instagram caption). This makes it super easy for me to open a blog post template and start writing a draft on my phone (like I did when I started this blog post). Sometimes I write a full draft in 20 minutes and come back to it later, other times it’s just a sentence or two to help me remember the idea.
When I’m ready to finish the blog post or edit, I open Notion on my laptop. Lately my dedicated writing time has been between the hours of 5:30-7 a.m. or in the evenings after 8 p.m.
Once the draft is complete, I let it marinate another day, give it another proofread and upload to Squarespace where I host my blog and website, Once’s that’s done, I proofread one more time for good measure and hit publish!
2. Resisting the urge to self-edit while writing
One of the biggest blockers as a writer is trying to find the right word or make a sentence absolutely perfect while writing. Writers are probably their hardest critics because we can keep tweaking and re-writing forever and still not be satisfied.
Avoiding self-editing while writing has helped me get all my thoughts out quickly without worrying about grammar, spelling or punctuation during the process. I tell myself I can worry about that later when it’s time to edit.
3. Noticing my surroundings
Common advice for creatives is to use the world around us for inspiration. While this advice holds true, it can be hard to notice inspiration when we’re juggling so many things or distracted by, I don’t know, social media and TV shows.
To help me get back in tune with the world, I’ve been intentional about listening and noticing while in conversations, spending more time with people, going on walks and being in nature, and trying to do more things just for fun.
So far it’s been working because my interactions and experiences have made for the most interesting topics to write about this month. (It sounds like the sage advice from Ole Golly in Harriet the Spy still holds true.)
4. Hitting publish consistently
Every time I publish a blog post, I feel like I’m taking a risk. Some blog posts don’t feel so risky (like this one), but there are others where I share a personal experience or write on a vulnerable topic and it feels like the biggest risk of all.
Putting yourself out there is a hard thing to do as a human (although for some it comes naturally, I think). As much as I love sharing through writing, my inner critic loves to be a fearmonger. However, I combat that every time I hit publish. Every blog post published is an act of courage that helps me build a new muscle in my brain.
5. Writing for fun
The number one goal for my writing habit is to have fun and explore my curiosities. While I have a rough content plan and a process for keeping ideas organized, it’s also all flexible and I don’t hold myself to writing on specific topics or publishing at a certain time of day if that doesn’t sound fun. The only thing I’m aiming for is publishing something once a week. Even if it’s a paragraph.
So that’s a peek into my writing process. As we near the end of January and the New Year’s resolutions hype is behind us, I’m proud of myself for showing up here for a month.
Here’s to continuing to clickity-clack on these keys and hitting publish again and again and again.
