Writing Everyday

I write everyday. Emails (way too many), texts, letters, and angry tweets (well I used to, haven’t been on Twitter since November of last year). After my month long journey through altMBA7, after interacting with amazingly generous and inspiring people, and after watching this 30 minute interview with Seth Godin — I am reinvigorated to write more publicly, to express myself with the intent to inspire impactful change in others — in you!

As a part of my writing habit I have recently started daily journaling again, a habit I maintained as a teenager. As I teen I stuck to mainly diary entries and stream of consciousness ramblings. Now I write in my journal with four main foci: gratitude, brain-dump, observations of interesting things, and bullet journaling.

• Gratitude: I write a list every night and every morning to amplify the positivity in my life. So many positive healthy benefits to activating gratitude. I find the humility that I embolden with acknowledging the privileges I have and the gratitude I feel for my life to be priceless.
• Brain-dump, stream of consciousness, free write; whatever you want to call it. Everyday I write for at least ten minutes with no clear aim or goal other than to clear my mind, to work my writing muscle. Sometimes there are creative pieces that come streaming out. Other times it’s meandering rambles clearing out the noise. Prune diligently.
• Observations of interesting things, thoughts, questions, inspirations. Review these notes often and you will be rewarded.
• Bullet journaling is a form of organization of lists than can be kept very simple and straight forward or be leveled up in countlessly creative manners. The flexibility of the format has allowed me to be creatively organized.

Writing everyday. Shipping, everyday as long as I count emails.

PS A wise man told me (as he was told by a wise woman with whom he worked) that you should consider every email you send public, as being shipped out to the world. Imagine every email you send on the front page (at least for a few minutes) of the New York Times or Washington Post (or Yahoo! News). Don’t send anything out that you wouldn’t be comfortable standing behind in the public sphere. Clicking the send button relinquishes any control you have over who else it reaches.

PSS If you are interested in more on journaling, check out the following two more in depth pieces on journaling, writing, and habits of the mind:

The Life Changing Habit of Journaling

Why Successful People Spend 10 Hours a Week on “Compound Time”