Writing, Habits, and Routines
A Little Koala Told Me
A Free Web Tool That Makes You Write Every Day — or Else!
I stumbled upon Koala Quill when I was reading an article about writing habits on Medium today. I don’t easily believe in apps for which I haven’t read much street credibility, but the simplicity of the concept behind the Koala Quill website was too intriguing to ignore.
What Is Koala Quill?
Koala Quill — or KQ — is a browswer-based writing tool that basically performs two key functions:
- KQ pushes you to write at least once every 24 hours.
- KQ generates writing prompts depending on your preferences.
There are other features of course, but those are the two that has injected a bit of turbo into my writing — not so much with the content or quality, mind you. But before KQ, I would write whenever I “felt like it” and that was a recipe for inconsistency or negligence. Not having ideas or inspiration for writing was also a go-to excuse but not now. Why you ask?
Koala no like excuses.
Gamified
Not to be confused with gaming and what gamers do, this app is gamified in that you earn tokens, like KQ points, as you write. The daily minimum is 100 words, which initially looked to me like a big number but is actually only around two whole paragraphs. You also earn a badge as you earn more tokens and get promoted to a higher level.
But for whatever reason you don’t write again the next day, you lose tokens and get demoted. No ifs or buts. This is gamification, which I am familiar with as a former school teacher who took advantage of educational technologies to engage my students with their learning. Children — and adults — love games. It’s a no-brainer.
Due to my slight OCD and perfectionist tendencies, it’s a challenge to write consistently and frequently because my personality compels me to spend a lot of time writing and rewriting something before I finalize it and publish on Medium.
My slow and cautious approach on Medium won’t change, but the new habit-forming exercise that KQ has ignited will very likely help with how often I write and publish.
KQ has shifted the paradigm. I used to think quality-only over quantity.
Now, I think trying to achieve quality without producing quantity is naive. Quality comes as a result of mastering a skill set, and that is usually only possible after a ton of practice.
Quality necessitates quantity.
The Koala is watching you. Yes, you.
I can’t wait for koalaquill to come out with an iOS version for my iPad and iPhone which will allow me to write on the go. Also, it would be great if an extension for Grammarly could be built into it. But in the meantime, I am already quite satisfied with this tool and look forward to writing increasingly more and regularly.
A shout out to my friend and mentor TAM (The Accidental Monster) whose article below An App To Break Through Writer’s Block introduced me to KQ, and Philip S. Naudus, our fellow Medium community member, who created it.
An app-in-the-making website
Thanks for reading!
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I just write for connections
(^-^)/
