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#30DayChallenge Complete!

This post is better read on this Twitter thread. Preserving the outline here for posterity.

  • Just finished my #30DayChallenge. Wrote every for morning for 30 minutes and published right away for 30 days straight.

  • Sharing my pain, process, and learnings from doing this successfully for the first time.

  • I’ve been blogging for 12 years now, but my problem has always consistency. I’d say I’m a decent writer. Some of my blog posts get “wows”, and the words of encouragement from a friend and strangers. “You should write more” they would say. “Yes” I would reply, but nothing would come after.

  • Writing has been on my annual goals list since 2014, but I never managed to turn it into habit. There would be fits and start and eventually things would taper off. Life would get it in the way.

  • My perspective changed when I read “Atomic Habits” last year and encountered the parable of the Photography class

  • This deeply resonated and also left me like a complete idiot. I was exactly the person focused on quality - reading blogs, books, spewing intellectual jargon but rarely producing output . I had a solid focus on ritual, pages and pages of blog post ideas but extraordinarily little in terms of actual posts written.

  • I tried to implement it last year too but failed again. Pandemic, first wave lockdowns and challenges at work meant the habit petered out again.

  • So when the second wave hit, I decided I could divert some time away from my doom-scrolling and attempt this again.

  • Happy to report that 30 posts, 16K words, 24 hours of writing. The deed is done and the challenge is complete.

  • Process

  • Fix a time: I wrote first thing in the morning. I am working full-time and things pop-up. Murphy’s’ Law! So, getting this out first thing in the morning is a great trick to keep it going . The serenity of the morning works wonders too. But I think you can dedicate time post-work too.

  • Think small: My goal was “Just write for 30 minutes and publish”.

  • Allow errors: I cared little about typos, links to background context, formatting or anything else. This was not my magnum opus, my goal was just writing consistently and forming a new habit.

  • Minimize activation energy: I prepared a list of topics when I was starting the challenge. This meant I didn’t open my editor and think “Uuhhhhh what do I write about today”? . The topics were ideas I knew about or had mentally munched at least a few times. The ingredients were on the table, I just had to show up and cook.

  • Choose simple tools: I also wrote straight in Tumblr’s editor from where I could hit the publish button and be done. Didn’t bother with my typical process of a fancy distraction free markdown editor with immaculate controls, and then pasting that into Tumblr and reformatting and …

  • Setup accountability: I would publish and ping a few folks the link right away. This way someone would notice if I missed a day. It triggered conversations and felt intimate . Felt like tweeting would add pressure, so stuck to this.

  • Learnings

  • The first thing I (re)discovered was, I loved writing! Writing is such a therapeutic activity. Getting absorbed in the task, hitting a state of flow and putting things on a page was pure fun and joy . I budgeted 30 minutes but wrote for an average of 45. I cannot believe a bad habit formation process kept me from this accessible and enjoyable hobby for decades now.

  • Quality of posts - I was surprised that many of my posts were pareto good. They were achieving what I would’ve spent 3-5 hours writing about. Parkinsons Law at work?

  • Another thing was discovering two kinds of posts - experience and analysis. Writing about my experiences was very well suited to the 30-minute morning dash of flowing emotion . But writing about a more serious topic needed some outline to be in place first. I absolutely cannot (and should not) churn out a “Zomato IPO: Thoughts” in 30 minutes; but I can definitely tackle one part of it.

  • And that’s that!

  • I plan to continue this habit. Hope you find this useful and inspiring and can skip a decade of failing!

  • If you want to tag along. Subscribe to my newsletter https://tinyletter.com/dalanmendonca

  • Posting schedule: Whenever I have something worth sending out. No pressure for me, less inbox clutter for you.

  • My blog is here https://blog.dalanmendonca.com/ but it is pure unfiltered mixture of occasional brilliance and consistent crap. Follow if you dare.

  • Cheers!