3 Ways To Trick Yourself Into Writing More
How I Effortlessly Developed My Writing Habits
The beginning of my writing journey was a struggle. I would sit myself down in front of a notebook, pen in hand, and end up writing something like;
“I don’t know what to write about but I am writing anyway and this feels silly”
Even though nobody was going to see it, I was privately embarrassed to write anything down. To be fair it was a necessary step toward decreasing the anxiety I had about writing.
At that point the reality of writing every day was a distant dream. I had to really cut things down to the bone.
Leveraging my laziness and worry, I managed to seamlessly integrate writing into my life with these three subtle strategies.
If it seems simplistic, that’s because it is. To do these successfully you have to accept doing less, not more. This is the lazy way to develop a writing habit.
1. Use Your Habits as a Bridge
If you look up the steps of the writing process you’ll find that the first step is either planning, drafting, or pre-writing
Those are all wrong. The first step in the writing process is getting your pen and paper. Or keyboard and screen. You need to have a writing setup.
For years I had plenty of ideas. I’d talk about them frequently, research them, even think of ways to say them well, but I would never take the steps to write them down.
Whatever your habits are, when you are engaged in them, simply place your writing materials nearby. This is a sneaky way to get you to create a writing set up and build a habit of setting it up frequently.
While watching YouTube videos, playing video games, or talking to friends, I would put a notebook and pen next to me or open my laptop,
Doing this I steadily started to write more and more ideas and eventually writing purely replaced some of those habits. One of my friends used the same tactic to start mixing more beats, and he just interviewed for a position at a recording studio yesterday.
The best part? It is perfectly okay if nothing gets written down.
The reason this is effortless is because you’re simply conditioning yourself to set up your writing materials anytime that you sit down and partake in your habits.
You are not forcing anything, but providing yourself the opportunity to record your ideas when they come to you. Honestly, a lot of the time you will feel compelled to expand on them also.
2. Use Your Phone
I cannot tell you how many times I have heard
“I had a great idea but I don’t remember what it was. I wanted to write it down but I had nowhere to write it”
“Just use your phone notepad!” I would say. Met with a bleak response of “eh, I’d rather not.”
Why? You never even need to look at it again.
Just writing it down will cause you to remember it and begin to develop the idea.
It may not be as good for your memory as physically writing it down but you are not entering a memory contest, and you will still build your habit even if you keep your aversion to the notepad.
Doing this will further reinforce the habit of you writing your ideas down. It cannot be overstated how important it is to write your ideas down.
It’ll get you comfortable with writing throughout the day.
I started doing this about a year ago and now I use my phone to write down ideas on a daily basis. Plus, if you do your writing in Google Docs, it is convenient to directly add or edit from your phone. I have almost 1000 notes in my phone notepad and hundreds of Google docs created.
If your organizational mind cringes at that, it shouldn’t. There is no harm done, and it perfectly integrates with the third strategy.
3. More Quantity=More Quality
You cannot increase the quality of your writing without practicing writing. Which means that you have to practice your quality within your quantity.
Yes, part of writing well is getting into the “flow state”. I kind of wrote about that here. Not with the term flow state, though.
No matter how optimal your writing mentality is it makes no difference to your writing if nothing gets written down. It is equally integral that words get written or typed somewhere.
You will organically find your writing style and acclimate to the state you write best in as long as you practice writing in that state.
How can we consistently practice writing from that state?
With the first two items on the list!
Given enough ease of access, when inspiration and motivation hit, you will drop what you’re doing for a moment, slightly adjust your position to your writing setup, and write down your inspired thought.
At first, that inspiration may only be momentary, a few times per day or less. But it will grow and become more stable.
Don’t buy into the hype that you need to go through some gauntlet of criticism and challenge to start writing things that will hit other people’s eyes.
Throw your caution and concerns to the wind. Nobody will see what you write down unless you choose to show them.
Bonus Tip: Writing Helps You Grow
Writing things down that I wanted to accomplish, learn, or change has been immensely useful to me. In ways that I would’ve never expected.
Out of those 1000s of things written in my phone, almost all of them were useful for my personal growth. They helped ingrain ideas into my head to shift my mindset and thoughts.
I found that my ideas become organized and I was able to speak about them much more easily.
Conclusion
There isn’t a day where I don’t feel like writing because it doesn’t feel like I ever started.
When I got the natural urge to write, the same urge initially made me want to start, I was able to put that to practice. Those simple, effortless shifts built my daily writing habit.
When I started doing the things written here, even if I only wrote a single sentence that counted as my writing for the day.
Why? Because I did something more important than forsake all of my daily activities and force myself to sit down and write. I provided myself the freedom to write.
Taking your time will often be faster than trying to rush. Trust yourself and trust your desire.
Thanks for reading!
When you write, is it difficult, effortless, or does it vary? Comment what your writing routine is like!
