My Writer Friend Intentionally Stole My Phone: What I Did Next Will Blow Your Mind
I’m pissed off at my friend. A very close friend. He stole my phone.
I’ll let you know exactly what happened.
We are best friends. We work in the day and meet at night for a coffee. This is our daily routine. It has been the same for the last 10 years. Both of us are writers.
Our daily discussion revolves a lot around writing. More than a friend he is my accountability partner. He guides me. Coaches me. And monitors my work closely.
If I get stuck anywhere, I call him and discuss the problems I face. He does the same If he gets stuck.
He is just amazing. He has a solution to my every problem. So, last week I shared the problems I was facing and things holding me from consistently writing and publishing. He has damn good patience and is a good listener as well. He was carefully watching me as I was listing out the reasons holding me.
He didn’t react. I was expecting a solution. But he was silent. In response, he just shrugged off.
He was brooding while sipping coffee.
After a few minutes, he said “I have one great solution to your problem. Just check your email once you go home. The solution will eliminate all the problems holding you from writing. You will now focus on writing and will start publishing more and more articles. Just check your email once you go home.”
I was enticed by his words. I was curious to know about this solution. My friend smiled and left. I was desperate to check the email so I ran towards home as fast as I could. I reached home and quickly opened my laptop. The email was there. I opened it and was surprised.
The email was as follows.
Dear Abdul Kader,
“I’m sorry for stealing your phone. Don’t search your pockets. It is with me now. You wanted to know the solution. This is the solution. I won’t give it back until you start publishing on medium. Publish one article daily for one week and take your phone back on the eighth day. I’m very serious. Don’t take this lightly. Want your phone? Start writing. Your time starts now.”
I became restless the moment I read the email.
Seven days without a phone was huge. This looked impossible. This has never happened before. I can’t imagine even a single minute without my phone. And here the challenge was to live without a phone for seven days straight.
But there was no other option. I had to accept the challenge anyway. I knew my friend. He is a man of his words. I had to publish daily for seven days If I want my phone back.
I realized this was for my good & accepted the challenge without any fuss.
The next day, I woke up & went for a walk. Did meditation for a few minutes. Cleaned my desk & started the challenge.
I had to write and publish one article daily. And had to repeat this for seven days to get back my phone, This was my driving factor. I was doing this for my phone and never thought about anything else.
I was new on the Medium platform. I had published a few articles. But less traction on those articles forced me to move away from it. Because I crave engagement. I want more and more likes and comments. It makes me happier. But, Medium is different than the rest. Only genuine people are here. Only quality writers & articles make it to the top. Rest get lost in the vortex of mediocrity. I knew this very well. However, my goal was to just publish, nothing more or less.
Things were slightly different this time. Getting up and sitting on the desk was easy. The benefit of not having a phone: No phone means no distraction. I was focused. No scrolling or binge-watching for hours. And no more wasting time. The mode of entertainment: My phone wasn’t there to suck my time and energy. It was only me, my laptop and my ideas.
Ideas were flowing. I jotted down the interesting ones and started writing. I was done with the first article. I published it and started working on the second one. Then the third one. Like this, I published one article daily for seven days. I won the challenge. I got my phone back.
This one challenge gifted me enormous benefits.
I developed a writing habit. I fell in love with Medium. I have 15 published articles as of now. Some of them are performing well. I got a good engagement. There is a total of 250 views on my articles. I have gained 35 followers. All this in just a week.
I want to publish more articles now. Medium has made me serious about writing. I feel restless if I don’t publish. I feel relaxed after I hit the publish button. I’m enjoying writing now. I realized the importance of consistency.
3 Lesson I learned from this challenge.
Make someone your accountability partner
My writer friend is my accountability partner. I thank him for taking my phone away and challenging me in such a unique way. Because of him, I developed a writing habit. I write and publish daily now. This is a benefit of having a writer friend. An accountability partner. Make someones your accountability partner and challenge them and ask them to challenge you. This would bring the best out of you and will benefit both of you. The challenge benefited both me and my friend. My friend took a self-challenge.
If I publish seven, he challenged himself of publishing double the number. This way it was beneficial to both of us.
No phone means no distraction
Stop scrolling and entertaining yourself endlessly. If you want to improve your productivity, keep your phone away. The phone sucks both your time and energy. Dedicate at least 8 to 10 hours of your time to writing. Continuous use of the phone may affect your mental health and productivity. I did the same for years. However, my recent experience made me realize that a smartphone is the biggest enemy of a writer.
Set a time limit for usage. Don’t use it for more than 2 hours. Keep it away when you are writing. Lock it up or ask any of your friends to steal it the way my friend stole it.
Medium is the best platform
Medium has revived my writing career. It has made writing more rewarding more fulfilling, more enriching for me. I have 15 articles and 37 followers now. I feel so happy and motivated after writing and publishing here. I’m surrounded by quality writers. There is so much positivity on medium. It has genuine people who give honest feedback.
No other platform is better than Medium for newbie writers. It’s even paying you for your content. And it’s paying better than any other.
