Lessons Learned from Blogging on Medium Every Day for One Month

Prioritize habits and learning before results

One month ago I made a promise. It was addressed to the general public but really it was for myself. I pledged to write every day for at least 10 minutes (this was far exceeded) and publish whatever I came up with. The “journey” if you can even call it that has just begun but here are a few things I learned.

• Break it into bite-sized chunks. I pledged to blog for 10 minutes every day for the month of July. Not to write the best articles ever written, but to just write and hit publish. I had no viable excuses each day so even when it was difficult — because I was busy or tired or full and buzzed after dinner — I still didn’t have an excuse other than pure laziness.
• If you do something you care about for several days in a row, you feel bad about skipping a day. Instead of finding excuses to skip, you find excuses to get it done. Use this to your advantage. Combine this with point #1. Make the early implementation of your goals manageable and use basic psychology against your lazy self.
• Having a project outside of work does a lot of positive things to your psyche. #1 it gives you something new that’s all yours and you can be confident in its momentum. #2 it will stir up latent creative forces that have been dormant inside you. And #3 it will refine a tangential skill (for me, writing/communicating) that will give you a new perspective on certain parts of your day job.

Theres a lot more that doesn’t easily fit into words and bulletpoints. These last 32 days have had as much meaning to me as anything I’ve done. I said I was gonna do something and goddammit I did it. You can’t imagine the power that holds. Take these tips and unlock that achievement for yourself. You won’t regret it.