7 Reasons Why You Should Write Daily (and How to Do It)

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chris hargreaves

4 min readAug 6, 2017

Writing daily is one of the most important habits that anyone can develop. Big call, right?

When you’re extremely busy, sitting down to write something that isn’t directly connected with your immediate goals can seem like time wasting or procrastination. But as you’re about to see, the habit of writing daily can offer significant benefits that go well beyond the few minutes it will take you.

We’re going to take a look at why you should write daily, and then how to go about it.

#1 — Purging Brings Clarity

Whether you’re trying to set goals, keep a journal or produce a book, getting a jumble of thoughts onto paper forces you to bring some form of clarity to it. At the very least, you’ll have to clarify your mind enough to turn thoughts into words.

Understanding what you actually believe and how to express it can have some excellent side effects in your overall communication skills.

#2 — Writing Brings Truth

We have a tendency to lie to ourselves fairly regularly. The things we’re “going to do” or that we say we care about.

The relationships that we tell ourselves are fine. The credit card debt that we pretend is under control.

But writing down these lies is a lot harder than the ongoing rhetoric in our heads. There’s something about putting pen to paper (or keys to board) that makes it a lot harder to accept the lie.

Sometimes it’s even surprising to us — we’ve been telling ourselves for so long that we really want X, but when the time comes to write it down it just feels… wrong.

Writing brings truth.

#3 — Words Have Power

Although I’m not a big fan of the “just believe and you can do anything” mentality, words have power.

Mere aspirations can become genuine ideas which become proper goals.

If you have damaged self-esteem and the story inside your head is telling you that you’re rubbish at everything and have no chance, then the act of writing can help both counteract the fiction, and help you clarify and re-tell the story to yourself.

Like I said — we lie to ourselves, and not always in a good way. Often the lies are damaging, and writing can help to refute the lie by rendering it invisible and inaudible.

#4 — Stories Help People

Although your daily writing habit doesn’t need to be completely public, perhaps you have a powerful story to tell. Perhaps other people could benefit from the lessons you have learned. Perhaps you can help people avoid traps, do better, grow their business or deepen their family relationships.

Whether you publish on LinkedIn, or Medium, or Facebook, or your own blog — it doesn’t really matter. If you have a story to tell and a lesson to teach, then writing it down is a great tool to help others.

Who knows? Write enough down and you might have a book before you know it…

#5 — Hitting Publish Gives you Courage

Again — your daily writing habit doesn’t need to be public to get these benefits.

But if you’re prepared to “hit publish” on something personal and put it out to the world, then you’re going to become far more resilient to irrational fears.

After all — everyone has a voice in their head at first which says “who would possibly care what you have to say” and “you’re not good enough”. Our fear is that we’ll put something out there and people will ridicule us.

Could that happen? Sure.

Is it likely — not really.

Throw your fears in the bin by starting a blog and writing daily — put it out there, and see what happens.

#6 — Writing Daily Promotes Creativity

It’s an interesting problem: so many of us have idea after idea after idea — in our heads. We can chat endlessly at the pub with our mates, family discussions are robust and frequent, and we’re happy to debate with our colleagues on professional topics.

Then we sit down to a computer and… nothing.

Blank page. Blank mind.

Writing daily can help you get into the habit of capturing your ideas and turning them into reality. Over time, writing daily will also refine your abilities to generate more words, faster.

#7 — Writing Daily Helps Connect you with Your Tribe

There’s something special that starts to happen as you write consistently. It’s really a combination of all of the above facts, but you’re going to notice something.

You’re writing constantly, authentically, and honestly. You’re telling stories that are vulnerable and helpful.

People will start to come around you.

Your people.

Your tribe.

They like the way you write, the things you write about, the honesty that you have.

And with a tribe around you, people have got your back.

And that’s a nice feeling.

But How Do you Start Writing Daily?

Commencing a daily writing habit is something that’s simple, but hard. The first thing is this: decide to do it, and stop making excuses about why you can’t.

You need basically no money, no resources, and no skills. You need to know how to read and write — that’s it.

And frankly, even if you don’t know how to read and write you could probably still be producing something every day with the right help or tools.

Try this though:

Commit to doing it — tell one person you trust, and ask them to keep you accountable by contacting you each day and bugging you about it
Pick a time that you always have available
Pick a format — I’d suggest you start a blog (follow these instructions if you’re stuck on that part)
Start small — just write something. 100 words, 250 words, 1000 words — write whatever
Block yourself off. Shut down your phone, your apps, your noise — and just write.