Many people tell me they want to write more often, But they have trouble building and maintaining a consistent writing habit. One person said, “I want some of your magic dust.”
A consistent writing habit does not require magic dust. However, it does require a writing habit, and possibly a streak. Too few people know how to create consistency for themselves. That’s why I use a “system.”
For me, systems depend first on the outcome I want.
Identify the Outcome I Want
I write nonfiction for (at least) these reasons:
- Know what I really think
- Market my business and my books
- Explore new ideas
These are not universal reasons—other writers might have different reasons. And, I change the outcome order depending on article, blog, and book-writing progress.
Writers choose how they write. I’m one of those word-count writers, and yes, I have a spreadsheet with my various word counts by type, and then by day, week, month, and year. That’s how I see my habits. Other writers focus on starting and finishing projects.
It’s the same with any other habit we want. Based on the outcome we want, we track data to see our progress.
But the outcome I want is more than just words. That’s when I differentiate between habits and streaks.
Differentiate Between a Habit and Streaks
I have a habit of writing every day. However, I don’t publish something every day. Instead, I publish weekly here—a streak. (I publish more often on my other blog, but I publish more often than once a week, and I don’t focus on a particular publishing day.)
I walk every day and have met my 5,000 step minimum for weeks, now. (My FitBit decided to go beserko on me and lost my streak information, but my Garmin dashboard says it’s been months—a streak—of a minimum of 5000 daily steps.) Since I’m experimenting with increasing my daily step count, I check my FitBit before I brush my teeth at night. (A habit.) And yes, if I’m close to 6000 steps, I do a few circuits around the bedroom before I go to bed. (Building a streak.)
Habits and streaks reinforce the behaviors we want for ourselves. (They also reinforce other behaviors, but I’m not talking about breaking a habit here.)
If we want to reinforce “good” habits, we need to reduce friction that prevents those habits or streaks.
Reduce “Bad” Friction
Sometimes, environmental friction helps me achieve my goals. If I only keep healthy food in the house, there’s tremendous friction to eating unhealthfully.
If you haven’t considered what you need to create a habit or a streak, you might need to change something in your environment. For decades, I’ve had an ergonomic setup with my keyboard and chair. I use two large monitors so I can see what I’m writing. For my writing, I have a loose collection of an idea bank and/or fieldstones. All I have to do is sit down and write.
No friction at all. That’s the beauty of a system.
Simplify with Systems
Streaks and habits don’t “just” appear. They require work. That’s why I create and use systems.
Systems do not have to be complex—and I strongly recommend they be as simple as possible.
You might not care about your writing habit. But the more you want a habit or a streak that you think will enhance your life, consider these ideas:
- Choose an outcome that you want.
- Is it a habit? Do you want that habit to build to a streak?
- What changes, often in recognizing friction, do you need to eliminate to make that habit, and eventual streak, possible?
That’s how I create simple and effective systems.
That’s the question this week: How can we make it easy to maintain our streaks or habits?