Changing cadence

Over the last 103 days, I’ve been super consistent in putting a piece of writing out each and every day. Go check if you don’t believe me, I’ll wait… you’re back? Good. A thought, a concept, my take on an event, a theory, a model, something got published, along with my childlike stick drawings.

I’ve learned a lot, not only about the topics that I’ve forced myself to think a bit deeper on but also about the tactics and strategies that help me to get something out every day, despite whatever else was going on in my life. The act of daily publishing has also help me to work on my tendency towards perfectionism, ‘shipping’ without the polish meant I had to reframe my self-judgment. Remember, perfectionism isn’t the pursuit of the perfect, more the relentless search for flaws.

But a pattern has emerged that’s caused me to rethink my publishing cadence.

I’m amassing a pretty significant backlog of posts that I begin, then postpone until “later”, because to do them justice I’d have to dedicate far more time than I had on that particular day. These are things I’m genuinely motivated to write more on, but the constraint of the time I have to write each day keeps them sitting in the ‘draft’ folder. If I’m honest, many of the daily posts I have put out leave me thinking “I should have said more.”

So in that spirit, I’m moving to a once a week publishing cycle. I thought about trying to do both, working on a longer piece while still releasing daily thoughts, but that would require more time than I have to commit.

I’ll still dedicate the same space each day to my writing practice, I’ll even include the same crude stick-figures, (maybe more!). But I will be focusing my energy on a single topic for the week, rather than jumping between wherever my mind takes me.

And hey, like this whole endeavour, this change is an experiment. If it doesn’t suit, I’ll switch it up again!