Looking Back on 30 Days of Writing

A month ago, I set out on a 30-day writing challenge. It feels incredibly satisfying to have completed it successfully, beating my previous record of 23 days. Like all habits, getting started was the hardest part. But after a few days, the words flowed with increasing ease.

Writing every day is not only fun, but it also helps me retain information. When fully engaged and undistracted, writing helps me express and evolve my ideas in a way that feel compounding.

In addition to writing on this blog, I’ve taken up a semi-regular journaling practice facilitated by an Obsidian Daily Note template. Obsidian has been a real companion to my writing practice, as I use it to capture fleeting thoughts and keep notes about articles and tweets. I plan to write a post soon about my Obsidian workflow and how I use it as a Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system.

The posts I enjoyed writing the most were the longer ones, like The Fascinating History of the Mormons & The State of Utah and The Art of Figuring It Out. I might take up doing a long-form post once per week of 1,000 words or more.

Here are a few fun stats from my 30-day writing challenge:

• Total words over 30 days: 16,092
• Longest post: 1,055
• Average words per post: 536
• Audio of the Week posts: 3 (missed one week)
• Posts about crypto: 11
• Posts about Utah: 2

There are a few important lessons learned here if I want to keep this up and not burn out—in other words, work smarter, not harder:

• Aim for 250 words and over-deliver—300 words were difficult to hit on busy days.
• Write more drafts and work on different posts simultaneously.
• Keep a list of topics to write about.
• Aim to write at the same time every day, preferably in the morning.
• Spend less time focusing on form—just write.
• Get more comfortable writing on my phone.

This challenge has taught me a lot, and I intend to write daily for the next month. My goal over the next 30 days is to write about crypto every second day.