101 Days of Writing: Progress Report 1

If we want to improve at something, it needs to be reported on. 

To report on something we want to improve, we need to measure, observe, and make conclusions on the work achieved (or not achieved as the case may be).

Our “101 Days of Writing” goal is 10 days in.  It’s a good sectionalisation of the goal: 10 groups of 10 days (plus one outlier last day, to make the 101). 

Looking back on the first 10 days of this caper, I get a strong (but imperfect) 7 out of 10.

I posted 7 times in the first 10 days:

·         Newsletter
·         AS2885.info blog (twice)
·         Facebook Page (twice)
·         LinkedIn (Post and Article)

I certainly was aiming for perfection:  to post EVERY DAY.  What happened to the 3 missed days?  And worse:  the misses were three days in a row (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). 

Some say that if you miss a daily goal one day, never miss twice; that’s how habits get bedded in.  And how the commitment is solidified.  So I missed three days (day 6, 7, 8), but still came back on Day 9 to restart at the goal.  What happened: well, it’s not a habit yet, I’m still learning; I ran out of time.  I ran out of energy.  It was a weekend.

All of those reasons/excuses are valid, and any or all of them can apply at any time we’re trying to build a new habit.

That’s why this is a 101-day challenge, not a 10-day challenge.  I have time to recover from that imperfect score, and build into the next one.  We’re now into the next group of 10, and all I have to do is post every day for the next 10 days (well, 9, because this newsletter counts!).

I’ve learned a few things in these first 10 days:

·         Block off time (30mins minimum, 60mins preferred) for this task. 
·         Think about what I’m going to write about while doing other tasks (walking, dishes, etc)
·         It’s not just the writing, there’s also the editing and the admin of posting it on different platforms that is taking a bit of time to figure out.

The stretch target for this next 10 days is to write (or just start writing) a long-form, multi-day article, an article that takes more than the allotted daily 30mins to write; it takes a bit of research and thought organisation.  These are more challenging than how I currently write, which is a ‘journal’ approach of just writing what comes to mind (which is how these newsletters are currently crafted).  Over the 100 days, this should morph into something more structured and thought-out. That will be an indicator of improvement, in my eyes.

Here's to the next 10 days!

Susan
September 11, 2024