Why I’m Writing 31 Articles In 31 Days This December
There are just a few weeks left in 2018 and I realized that this year I haven’t been writing as much as I did in 2017. This year I joined a new company, so the ramp up time at ActiveCampaign made it harder to find time to write as did some health related issues. I’m determined to end the year strong though and that’s why I’m going to write 31 articles in 31 days this month.
It’s Easier When You Write Often
Back in 2017 I would just write an article really quick, without even proofreading it I’d publish it and go on with my life. While this is a bit extreme (proofreading is usually a good idea), the idea that this isn’t the first article you’ve written in months or years as well as knowing you’ll write another one soon are great ways to reduce your anxiety around writing.
Writing often also helps you build muscle memory (your brain is a muscle, right?) and therefore the more you do it the easier it will get. Deploying software at the end of every sprint ends up being less stressful than only once a quarter because you’ve built up the expertise over many deployments. Using this same example, if you are deploying every two weeks (time of an average sprint) you likely have a process in place that supports this and the stress of screwing something is far less (just ship something better two weeks later).
Diving into process a little more you’ll likely find that the more you write the more mundane it becomes. You’ll fall into a general process that helps you write quicker which should result in a positive cycle since the more you write the less stress inducing the task should be. My general process today is:
- Decide on a topic.
- Write a brief introduction to the topic (further solidify what I’m going to write about).
- Write the article as it comes to my mind, break it up into sub-headings for larger ideas for scalability.
- End the article with the same call to action to save time.
- Find a picture on Unsplash that vaguely goes with my article.
- Read it through once.
- Tag the article for Medium and publish.
That may seem like a lot but it’s really not that bad. I’ve found that most of my articles take anywhere from one to two hours to go from inception to published. My articles aren’t the most polished things out there, but that’s not really the point.
You Remember More
I think this point is worth calling out on it’s own. If you write often, and the thing you write about happened about recently you will remember far more than if you are writing about something two months after the fact. I’m a software engineer and so my world changes on a monthly basis since there is always a new technology being released or buzzword being created. One of my co-workers wrote an excellent article about continuous integration but struggled to recall some of the decisions he had made months prior.
It’s one thing to say you know something, it’s another thing to try to teach others about that thing. In a way writing an article can be another way to study for material you just learned about. As you are writing and forming your opinion you may find out you didn’t know something as well as you thought you did and do some additional research before pressing the publish button. The very act of writing is also reinforcing, as you are taking the time to form thoughts neural pathways are being formed and so your memory of the topic should be a bit better.
Putting Yourself Out There Makes You Stronger
It’s one thing to have an opinion on a subject, it’s another to having an open discussion about that subject with others. Whether conscious or unconscious it’s difficult to write about any topic without having an opinion. I’ve been proven wrong several times since I started writing on Medium and it has helped me form new and (hopefully) better opinions.
I have also gained more confidence through reading and responding to comments on my own articles. Sometimes the commenter is indisputably right about what they are saying, other-times they are definitely wrong. Most of the time it’s a gray area though where their comment is also largely based on opinion. In the those situations it’s usually best to exercise empathy before responding, and I’ve found that responding to someone in a context relatable to them typically results in better overall discussions. Unsurprisingly, in a professional environment responding to coworkers with empathy can go a long way as well, writing in your free-time can be beneficial to your professional life!
Here Are My 31 Articles
If you come across this article in 2019 it might be helpful to see what I wrote over this 31 day journey, you’ll find each article linked below. If you are reading this in 2018 then feel free to come back as I’ll be updating this article as new ones are published.
I hope this article inspires others to go out and write more. You don’t have to write for a full month, maybe start out with writing seven articles in seven days and see how you feel after that. Finally I wanted to end with a semi-relevant quote from the great Ferris Bueller:
The tech world moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and write and article once in a while, you could forget it was ever even a challenge you had to overcome.
Dec 1st — Android Adaptive Icons Are Easier Than You Think
Dec 2nd — Why You Should Use Class Delegation In Kotlin
Dec 3rd — Why I’m Writing 31 Articles In 31 Days This December
Dec 4th — The Curious Case Of The Channel That Wouldn’t Quit
Dec 5th — Reflecting On Living With Depression
Dec 6th — Managing Disposables in RxJava 2 - The Less Bad Version
Dec 7th — How To Remove Stickers From Your Work Laptop After Receiving a New Job.
Dec 8th — Lessons Learned From Grieving Over A Co-Worker’s Passing
Dec 9th — Early and Often, How To Release Software
Dec 10th — Dagger 2 Decomposed and Demystified for Android
Dec 11th — Foundations of Dagger 2 for Android
Dec 12th — How Modules Work in Dagger 2
Dec 13th — Using Components to Wire Everything Together in Dagger 2
Dec 14th — Getting Your Dependencies From Dagger 2 in Android
Dec 15th — Why I value story pointing and how you can get more value out of imaginary numbers.
Dec 16th — The Tech Industry Is Broken and It’s Our Fault.
Dec 17th — Why I’m Definitely Pessimistic On Indefinite Optimists
Dec 18th — Reflecting On The Idea That Suicide Is Inconvenient
Dec 19th — The Painful Truths About Stress
Dec 20th — Reflecting Twenty Articles In Twenty Days
Dec 21st — NADA, THIS IS THE DAY I FAILED THE CHALLENGE :(
Dec 22nd — There ain’t no such thing as a free service, and why I’m giving up Facebook in 2019.
Dec 23rd — Connecting The Dots On My Career So Far
Dec 24th — NADA, I spent the day with my girlfriend’s family.
Dec 25th — The End Of Year Staycation
Dec 26th — NADA, I think I played video games?
Dec 27th — NADA, I think I went outside and played video games?
Dec 28th — NADA, I think I went shopping or something.
Dec 29th — NADA, I played video games.
Dec 30th — The Definitive Guide For Leaving Your First Software Engineering Job
Dec 31st — 31 Articles In 31 Days, Finding Success In Failure
Thanks for taking the time to read through my article. If you found something to be not quite right or have other information to add please reach out in the comments section below. If you enjoyed this article, please click on the clap icon a few times or share it on social media (or both). Lastly, I’m starting up a mailing list that is powered by ActiveCampaign, if you want to get weekly newsletters then please use the sign-up form below.
