Skip to main content

Ongoing Tactical Experiments in Writing

My goal for this year has been to write every day. Could be technical/scientific writing, or blog posts like the one you are reading now.

I have been using the following steps to write faster and more persuasively. I urge you to give these a try and build your own habits. What you do regularly is who you are.

Four steps:

(i) Block off 2 hours each day (no distractions, no commitments, put it one the calendar),


(ii) Get a piece of music on loop and put on your headphone, write for 25 min (no editing) only using a note-taking app (I use Evernote) for notes (no web browsing),


(iii) Mild exercise or walking for 5 min,

repeat (i–iii) 3 times, I use Toggl Desktop for this 25-5 pomodoro-type time-tracking.

(iv) Edit your prose for grammar and flow, read aloud if you prefer.

Reduce the variables, build a habit, win the day.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Quotes from "The Social Leap"

These are the lines from William von Hippel in his book “The Social Leap” that I found to be incisive and insightful. “The ability to kill at a distance is the single most important invention in the history of warfare, because weaker individuals can attack stronger individuals from a position of superior numbers and relative safety.” “As if division of labor were not enough, Homo erectus then sealed the deal with the single most important innovation in human history: the control of fire.” “Long before the invention of writing (which is only about five thousand years old), human culture had become cumulative by virtue of our oral storytelling traditions .” “When we weigh up the costs and benefits, we see that farming afforded our ancestors some assurances against starvation, but at the cost of various new illnesses, reduced stature and longevity, excruciating halitosis, and often a far longer working day. The end result was that early farmers worked harder to achieve a worse life than
Post a Comment
Read more

Quotes from "Atomic Habits"

 Here are the quotes from James Clear's "Atomic Habits" that I found insightful: “When it comes to habits, the key takeaway is this: dopamine is released not only when you experience pleasure, but also when you anticipate it.” “Once we fit in, we start looking for ways to stand out.” “When the effort required to act on your desires becomes effectively zero, you can find yourself slipping into whatever impulse arises at the moment.” “… the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.” “… avoiding a 33 percent loss is just as valuable as achieving a 50 percent gain” “When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different. By combining your skills, you reduce the level of competition, which makes it easier to stand out. ”
Post a Comment
Read more

Appreciating Uncertainty

"Uncertainty is the only certainty there is. And knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” — John Allen Paulos Uncertainty causes anxiety and fear . And these emotions may lead to displaced anger and poor judgment. What should we do when we face uncertain odds in the near future? “You shouldn’t give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don’t care at all.” — Euripides What if we re-interpret the uncertainty? What if in uncertainty, lie opportunity? After all risk and luck are two sides of the same coin. Win or lose, uncertainty enables us to learn. “The difference between predictions and outcomes is the key to understanding a strange property of learning: if you’re predicting perfectly, your brain doesn’t need to change further… Changes in the brain happen only when there’s a difference between what was expected and what actually happens." (emphasis mine) — David Eagleman So when we predict the future and the predictions turn out to be wrong, we
Post a Comment
Read more