What the hell is this?
Have you ever had that itchy feeling that you were destined to do something but continually stuck in neutral? As John Lennon said: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
My wife has harassed me for several years about my not writing; she can’t understand why I don’t do it more. After all, I give talks, I pretend to be full of wisdom (that’s being a consultant, right?), and I’m an English grad, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
Until recently, every time I approached a blank document, it just came out all wrong. Sentences didn’t make sense, I felt awkward; I became my own worst enemy. Steven Pressfield called it ‘The Resistance’. Asimov puts it well:
The ordinary writer is bound to be assailed by insecurities as he writes. Is the sentence he has just created a sensible one? Is it expressed as well as it might be? Would it sound better if it were written differently? The ordinary writer is therefore always revising, always chopping and changing, always trying on different ways of expressing himself, and, for all I know, never being entirely satisfied.
I decided to change my habits in order to get some writing out, give back to my community, and improve my writing all at the same time. But I had some questions to answer.
Q: How can I fit this in to the busy life of a consultant (where my time is largely not my own)?
A: Lower expectations. Commit to getting a smaller amount of writing done, but do it every day. Write whatever can be written in 5 minutes, once a day.
Q: How can you avoid The Resistance?
A: Use a tool that *forces* you to write non-stop: themostdangerouswritingapp.com. This is similar to a concept borrowed from ‘The Artists Way’ called morning pages — writing non-stop every morning, as soon as you wake up.
Q: What will I write about?
A: Capture things you’ve learned or thought about design (in Evernote) any time something occurs to you (I easily have one a day). Put a couple of thoughts down, and then have them visible when you eventually write the article.
Q: How will I keep going?
A: Make continual publishing a game to play with yourself using the Seinfeld calendar. Keep the calendar of daily progress highly visible — it’s stuck to my screen at work.
Tip: In the past I’ve found that apps that use the Seinfeld method don’t work, because they’re not visible enough. In addition, use social pressure — publishing here will help to keep me committed.
Q: How can I ensure quality?
A: A design principle I use: JFI (Just Fucking Iterate). If it’s no good, just do 5 minutes on something else, or allow yourself a tiny amount of editing afterwards.
These answers form the rules of writing for Slapdashery. I’m going to commit to publishing something about design, UX, and products every weekday.
I’ve no idea if it will be useful to people, or any good: I can only guarantee that it will be brief, varied, off-the-cuff, and against the grain of the way we usually work. As designers, we seek a kind of perfection that all to often strangles working from the heart and leaves us stuck in our heads. It’s the difference between improvising music and sight-reading. Both are useful; both have great value, but I’ve found that the balance can tip too far in one direction, depending on your training.
This is my attempt to work the unnatural, unfiltered, uninhibited way, and get better at writing by force of habit. I hope that in my attempt to build better habits and writing, something falls out of me that’s useful to you.
(I’ll eventually be looking for contributors, so get in touch if you’d like to have a go.)
