Another new year has arrived and it is time to commit towards New Year Resolutions and to introspect and evaluate learning from last year’s resolutions.
Last year around same time, I was in the middle of writing my book and pushing towards completion. Some where in between I came across this interesting New Year Resolution quote.
Tomorrow, is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one — Brad Paisley
The more you think about this quote, you can find deeper meaning and derive lot of inspiration to strive for your best — Begin fresh and work towards your goals and self-improvement through disciplined hard work — every day of the year — 365 days
I took the quote to its literal meaning as a goal last new year. That was a time when I had just discovered Quora. Quora is a social knowledge network with a growing collection of Questions and Answers . It stands apart from all other Q&A platforms in terms of high quality content and well thought answers and discussions from experts in almost every topic that you can think of . The best part of Quora is that it is a platform that supports quality knowledge sharing through in-depth answers as well as social networking (by following topics and people, messaging, voting and commenting). I was spending increasing amount on time on Quora — first in terms of reading well written answers and top writers, and then towards my goal of sharing knowledge and improving my writing skills.
Finding a question to answer was easy as there were lot of unanswered questions in every topic that I subscribed to based on my interest and expertise — VLSI, Semiconductors, ASIC/Chip design, verification and other related topics, Job search, Career guidance, online teaching etc.
However, writing the first few answers was not so easy even though the answers were clear in mind. I had to spend more time to think, read, answer and then re-read and re-write to make it clear from a reader’s perspective. Some of my initial answers got completely ignored with very less views, votes and followers. I could have given up but seeing the increasing number of interesting questions asked in my topics of interest, I decided to pursue answering more while also looking for continuous improvement in my writing skills.
Today a year has passed and I have finished writing 365 answers on Quora spread across 20+ topics. That is an average of writing one in-depth answer each day which has been a big motivation to me. Every day, I continue to find interesting questions to answer — making me think, learn and write it down. What started off as a small effort to writing turned out to be very rewarding in terms of benefits. The social networking stats at end of year was — 1.1K followers, 342K views on answers, 2.42K up-votes, and Most viewed Writer tag for more than 20 topics.
However more than the numbers, what was more satisfying was the inflow of personal messages from several students/engineers and being able to help them through some means or other.
You can read some of the most viewed answers here organized on Quora blogs — My Selected VLSI answers and Verification Excellence
For further reading and if you have more questions, feedback, comments, check my Quora profile here
What I learned writing 365 answers in a year ?
Learning to write is learning to think. You don’t know anything clearly unless you can state it in writing .
— S.I. Hayakawa
This quote sums up the biggest learning. When I started off I was confident about my knowledge and skills having worked in VLSI industry for more than 17 years. However this realization happened as I started writing down detailed answers. Several of those questions needed me to spend some good amount of time to read, think and learn before answering. So writing does improve your knowledge as much as reading. And indirectly improves your reading habits.
Meeting a goal needs disciplined efforts to achieve. There was good chance of me giving up after writing the first 20 or 30 answers as this was neither my primary job nor gave me any rewards. Most of those initial answers were written badly and did not receive any attention. However consistent and persistent efforts to improve helped and after more than 100 answers, I could feel that people are finding value from my answers.
What did I benefit from writing almost every day ?
The benefits were many some from writing every day on Quora.
The biggest reward was self-improvement and a sense of satisfaction. Every answer was written with honest efforts to be of high quality with relevant and correct information. This improved my own learning, reading and thinking.
When an answer is accepted by a reader in terms of comments, up-votes and follow up questions or messages, it provided me the biggest satisfaction and motivation to write more.
Quora being a social knowledge network indirectly helped in having a personal online presence — more audience for my book, courses and more friends.
What is in for you ?
So that was my experience and why did I write all this?
- To thank every one who asked questions, read my answers, followed me and personally wrote to me. You finding value was my motivation to write and improve.
- To inspire every reader at this time of New Year to commit towards a resolution that will help you strive towards being better in coming year— All it needs is a start and disciplined efforts for you to become better.
Thanks for reading and Wishing every one a Happy , healthy and prosperous New Year ahead !
