These Habits Make Me a Better Writer
Steal these to cultivate your own creative process
Read to collect the dots, write to connect them.
— David Perell
In my experience, this is quite a sound philosophy to be both a voracious reader and a passionate writer.
I have been reading from a very young age, and naturally, through ardent consumption of words littered across the pages of the books that I’ve consumed so heartily have shaped much of my writing process from the later years when I finally picked up my pen (we used pens those days ;) ).
In the age of social media with ever increasing distractions and diluting attention spans, we tend to cower from long form activities such as writing, and we do this without even noticing!
Thus we arrive at some of the habits that I want to share with you that help me a ton with my own day to day creative process, and thus, helps me be a better writer.
Your phone is your friend, yes— but make this small change
Our smartphones enable our lives in ways that surpass any discussion. They have become our most trusted friends— we depend on them quite literally for things essential to our daily lives.
But bear with me a little.
Do you keep your friends always within hands reach on your desk as you sit down to work? Do you let your friends distract you from your work every few minutes?
If you realize how much of a distraction your phone poses while just sitting nearby on your desk, you’ll be tempted to keep it away, at least for a while as you go into work mode.
Here’s what I do: As I sit to work on my desk, I place my phone behind my back. There’s a saying that goes— “If it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind,” — and it feels really accurate here.
That little lingering feeling to pick up your phone to check the latest notifications—it’s all gone when I do this. A little life hack, you can say, for superbly more productive mornings!
Take a little more diligent notes
I come across inspiration every where I go. A little sign board on the window of a coffee shop I visit, a great blog post I see and quickly skim through and even tweets from some of the best people I follow!
These little nuggets of inspiration stay for a very little time in my memory, and once I realized I was forgetting many of the things I saw or read a few weeks before— which is natural for a normal human brain — I decided upon some better note taking practises.
Simply put, I now always make sure to write down that nifty little quote, or that tweet that put a smile on my face, or that blog post with great advice somewhere on my person.
You can do this digitally or otherwise — the method doesn’t matter—only the intent does. And now, when you do store those rough but informative scribbles from weeks before, it becomes a spark for your creativity.
The mechanics of how you end up making these small yet impactful lifestyle changes depends on you and your own creative process.
I merely hope it gives you a direction to look forward to and customize when maximizing your writing potential!
Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you in my next post. :)