I originally created this blog to have somewhere where I could share my projects, learnings, and thoughts, as well as to encourage myself to continue writing regularly after completing my apprenticeship. Yet I haven’t published anything in over a year despite there being plenty to share. Why is that?
I’ve been thinking about this recently. And I’ve realised it’s because I lack confidence in my writing ability. This results in me putting off writing as I want to avoid the potential of producing something that I consider not good enough. Without regular practice, my ability only gets worse and my confidence decreases. Essentially, I’m self-handicapping. I discovered this term whilst writing this post and it perfectly encapsulates the issue.
When I first decided to continue writing regularly, I tried to build the habit around a system rather than building a system around the habit. I bought into the idea of the Zettelkasten method and building a second brain. All this did was make writing feel forced as I was trying to use a system that didn’t feel natural. It turns out that this is one of the many ways that self-handicapping manifests itself: making a task more difficult in order to justify not doing it.
So, what am I going to do about this? Firstly, I’m committing to writing something every day whether it’s an idea, a note, or a longer form writing. Secondly, I’m keeping what I found useful from the systems I tried to implement as well as what I started doing of my own accord: ideation and daily notes in a physical notebook; maintain a flat file structure for digital notes; linking between notes to form a ’network' of knowledge; and regularly publishing my writing.
My published writing will be available in two places. My notes Git repository will contain what it says on the tin and will be updated more regularly. This website will contain more refined writing.
I hope that that this will finally help me to build the habit of writing regularly. If you’re reading this, please feel free to use it to hold me accountable!
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