Active Recall!

Podcasts, videos, and iPad art

5 tips for writing daily (and mayyybe publishing)

1. Email yourself

You’re going to open your email inbox more often than you’re going to open your text editor. Email something to yourself. It can feel like much less pressure. Respond to yourself to practice writing single ideas in a thread. If you use Evernote, you can add notes through email. Use Readwise to get highlights and that will make it easy to both review book highlights and start writing.

2. Set yourself up to publish from your phone

If you’re trying to set a publishing goal on top of just getting the writing done, see if you can publish from your phone. Don’t make it the main way that you publish — there are too many distractions on your phone so try to avoid those. But make it possible (and if you make it easy, even better) to publish from your phone so that you can do it when necessary. Keep those streaks going.

3. Use TextExpander for quick outlines

I write ;topics and here’s what I get:

Text Expander Topics shortcut

I can write a topic and some sub-topics. It makes it really easy to get a quick 3-point outline out. It’s just enough structure to keep things moving during a writing session.

(If I’m on my phone, I use Shortcuts to do something similar.)

4. Use Cold Turkey Writer to stay focused

On Tim Ferris’s podcast, Neil Gaiman talked about writing or doing nothing, with no options in between:

Neil Gaiman: Yeah, ’cause I would go down to my lovely little gazebo at the bottom of the garden, sit down, and I’m absolutely allowed not to do anything. I’m allowed to sit at my desk, I’m allowed to stare out at the world, I’m allowed to do anything I like, as long as it isn’t anything. Not allowed to do a crossword, not allowed to read a book, not allowed to phone a friend, not allowed to make a clay model of something. All I’m allowed to do is absolutely nothing, or write.

What I love about that is I’m giving myself permission to write or not write, but writing is actually more interesting than doing nothing after a while. You sit there and you’ve been staring out the window now for five minutes, and it kind of loses its charm. You’re going, “Well, actually, let’s all write something.” 

Cold Turkey Writer lets you set a word count goal or a time duration goal and then it locks you in a text editor. You can’t switch to other apps. You can’t force quit it. You can either reach your goal or restart your laptop.

cold turkey writer

You can write or do nothing.

(Or check your phone and do everything, but don’t do that!)

5. (Digital) Location location location

Write in the editor.

I’m writing this in MarsEdit. (I’m guessing I first learned about it through Daring Fireball.)

I know that MarsEdit is for publishing. It acts as a constant reminder that I’m writing with the intention for publishing. The WordPress editor gives me the same reminder. (But being in a browser can be tempting…)

To contrast, Evernote makes me think I’m writing a private note, Docs makes me think I’m writing a draft to share for revisions. (Apple Notes makes me think I’m writing a public apology to screenshot and tweet out later.)

All useful, but if I want to get a quick post out, I’ll write where I can publish. I also always make 2-3 small edits after publishing so this is why I find myself using MarsEdit over Ulysses or iA Writer—those have good integrations with WordPress but once it’s published I can’t edit.

UntitledImage

I promise Tim Ferriss isn’t the only podcaster I listen to, but here’s another quote from an interview with Seth Godin:

I feel the same way about my blog. If I am in the Typepad editor, I know exactly what my brain is supposed to feel like. And then the writing happens.

(Seth publishes daily and encourages others to as well. You, too, can get to 7000 posts.)

Learn what your brain feels like when you’re in writing mode. Figure out where, when, and how it gets into that mode. Then find ways to re-create that environment.

 

Ramblings (on a timer)

It happens every month or two. I feel like I haven’t published and want to get back to posting things regularly. I usually think of what Seth Godin says: write in the editor.

For me, that’s opening up WordPress and going full screen in the editor. When I’m here, I know that I’m writing something for publishing. I can sort of keep that in mind when I’m writing in Evernote or Google Docs and especially MarsEdit. But none give me the “Okay I’m writing to publish this” the way that writing right in the editor does.

Anyway, some bullets. Actually, first, a pizza

  • Finally ate at Lucali’s — Well, got a pie from Lucali’s at least. Which was great since it meant that there wasn’t an hour+ wait to get a seat. Everything they say is true. It’s really good pizza. My favorite slice in the world is a fra diavolo from Pizza Suprema. But that’s because it has nostalgia as a major topping for me. But really that’s the one I’d want. And it shouldn’t be compared to a thin crust slice since it’s not apples to apples. What I ate today was awesome and definitely gives me a twinge of sadness that we’re leaving New York in a couple months.

    We’ve got some eating to do.

Okay the timer actually ran out so I guess it’s just one bullet for now. Gotta respect the timer.

Today’s listen: BJ Fogg | How the Tiniest Habits Lead to the Biggest Changes (TRAINED by Nike, hosted by Ryan Fisherty) — I read BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits earlier this year (check out my posts with the tiny-habits tag for more) and have started applying some of the idea in it more recently to get back on the exercise/nutrition wagon (ignore the pizza paragraph above). Now I’m wishing that I really tried applying them earlier. But better late than never.

Anyway, something he stresses is having tiny celebrations for tiny wins. (Rather than no celebration at all.) Getting the tiny habit done and feeling good about it will help to make it stick.

Stopping when the 10 minute timer ends and feeling that satisfaction means I can build my writing habit back up. But it does mean to stop and hit publish.

Ok I’m going to do that now.

Really.

You know something that’s worth teaching (so share your knowledge)

Are you the #1, absolute best in the world at something?

No? Not a problem.

What about top 1%? Top 50%? Have you done something for a year? For a few months? Are you on day one? Still no problem.

You have something worthwhile to share.

It might even be more useful than that #1 best-in-the-world guru’s advice. Jason Fried, co-founder of Basecamp, has a good example from the business world. He was on The Chase Jarvis Live show in 2018 and he talked about people giving advice on things they haven’t done for decades. From “It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work with Jason Fried” (2018):

I think in our world, in the entrepreneurial world, especially, there’s a lot of people dishing advice that haven’t done the thing ever. Or they did it a long time ago. And I think you need to discount that. I think advice goes stale. It has a half life. And it’s pretty quick.

Experts know a lot (but they forget things along the way)

Having access to expert knowledge will help when you’re learning something new. They’ve been around long enough to understand the principles that matter over the course of years.

They’ve forgotten what it’s like to be completely new to a discipline.

Brian Koppelman, co-creator of Billions and co-writer of Rounders talks about how he’s been in the business long enough that he’s no longer an expert in breaking in. From his Q&A on 2/21/19:

A bunch of questions are about how to break into the business. I’ve written some thoughts about this on my blog. But I don’t have a great answer for you. You know, one thing I really don’t like is when people hold themselves out as an expert on something on which they’re not an expert

I’m not an expert on breaking in anymore. I broke in 22 years ago.

And I’m so far away from that moment that I can’t answer the question. My answers feel idealistic. They’re just all about doing the work. They’re all about producing the pages and making something so undeniable, a script or a short, that it gets people’s attention.

But the truth is there are people much closer to the ground who can answer that question better than I can.

As someone works their way up in their career, they’re further removed from the work on the ground. It’s good to have access to resources from people who aren’t so deep into their expertise. They have a better memory of the hurdles immediately facing a beginner.

You can be this resource for other people.

What would you teach yourself 6 months ago?

Let’s say you’ve started making things online and sharing them on social media. You’ve been doing this for a year and now have some systems in place.

Would those systems be useful to you 6 months ago? Yes.

Some other questions that lead to answers that would be useful to you 6 months ago.

  • What have you started doing in the past 6 months to make your work easier?
  • What dumb issues did you face in the past 6 months that have solutions that seem obvious now?
  • What resources have you learned about in the past 6 months?

The great thing, of course, is that there are people who are currently in the same position you were 6 months ago.

Write answers to those questions and share them with others.

See one, do one, teach one (but with your online writing)

There’s a teaching phrase called “See one, do one, teach one” that comes from medical surgery. You see an expert do it, you do it yourself, and then you teach another trainee.

There are arguments against the approach in surgery, particularly in terms of patient safety. I’m not a medical expert or a teaching expert. This paper seems to do a good job pointing out that the phrase is oversimplified but is useful with some modifications.

However, it can be built upon and greatly enhanced with various learning principles, committed mentors, and advanced technology, such as medical simulators. Residents must be encouraged and given the opportunities to learn and improve upon their surgical skills by mentors who continue to improve upon their skills as well.

Here’s my modification for, let’s say, getting better at making things online.

  • Watch a bunch, do it a bunch (while being watched), and teach it a bunch.

Here’s how you can do that by sharing your learning through writing.

  • Watch a bunch (Read, watch, and listen to experts) — Even better if you can talk to an expert to talk about your specific experience. Organize and share these resources with other people.
  • Do it a bunch (Share it so others can give feedback) — If you’re trying to improve as a writer, publish things online and seek out feedback. If you’re learning to make videos, publish them and seek out feedback. If you’re making a podcast… okay same thing. And you can share the different stages. Share an outline with someone to get feedback. Have someone take a look at your interview questions to see if they find them interesting.
  • Teach it a bunch (Awareness helps you correct your own mistakes) — If you capture your thought process along the way, you can review them as you gain more experience to see where your approach was wrong. Then you can help prevent others from making those same mistakes. The old articles you wrote act as proof that you really were in their position at one point in time. And your current level of success can motivate others. As you write, you’ll see the gaps in your own knowledge that you’ll need to fill in and cement.

If you do this for long enough, you’ll work your way up toward the top 50%, top 25%, top 10%.

And you’ll always have something worth sharing along the way.

The Notepod #5 – “Tiny Habits”

Corrections: Messed up Ethan Suplee’s name (I said ‘Sharplee’). Sorry about that. Check out his episode with Kevin Smith. 

This week I’m talking about BJ Fogg’s “Tiny Habits“.

If you’ve ever heard the advice of “if you want to build a habit of flossing your teeth, make the habit flossing one tooth”, then you’ve been influenced by some of BJ Fogg’s work.

I go over some of the concepts covered in the book and take a look at my habit of checking my phone first thing in the morning (instead of my aspirational goal of working out first thing in the morning).

Some topics

  • Aim to do what you already want to do: Read things you enjoy if you’re trying to build a reading habit. If you want to read more difficult, dense things, it’ll be hard if you aren’t already reading regularly in the first place.
  • Practice doing the habit: I mentioned a post by Steve Pavlina about practicing waking up. “Tiny Habits” encourages practicing the habit itself a few times in a row. This way, if it’s a daily habit, you aren’t limited to one rep every day. Practice the entire habit (including the celebration) then do it again.
  • Speaking of celebrating, most people aren’t good at it: Sometimes we’re driven by incentives to stick to a diet. One common example is the cheat meal. You stick to your diet day in and day out and then have the cheat meal (or day) on the weekend. This can be effective but it’s more of an incentive rather than a celebration. You can add tiny celebrations immediately after your tiny habit. Fist pump after flossing one tooth. It sounds silly but it’ll pour a little bit of concrete on the habit.

 

The Notepod #4 – Rabbit holes and other book notes

[ 0:49 ] An internet recommendation rabbit hole ending with Michael Jackson and Prince and starting from JJ Redick and Bill Simmons (Learn about the Staples Center replica court that a very rich person has in Bel Air)

[ 6:47 ] How do you deal with overplanning?

[ 9:04 ] How many episodes will it take to hit your stride? (“Traffic Secrets” by Russel Brunson)

[ 11:34 ] How do you figure out what your ideal environment is? (“Making of a Manager” by Julie Zhuo)

[ 15:04 ] What’s the magic of 120 hours and hard days? (“How to be a Straight A Student” by Cal Newport)

3 ways I use Shortcuts for writing with my iPad (and iPhone)

Here’s a new video where I show how I use Apple Shortcuts for day to day writing.

Shortcut #1: Short bullets throughout the day

The first time this runs for that day, it asks for one text input (where I can write a quick thought down). Then it will:

  • Create a new note with the date in the title
  • Add a timestamp
  • Add the text from the text input

Every time after that, it will

  • Append to that day’s note
  • Add a timestamp
  • Add the text from the text input

Instead of cluttering Evernote by creating a bunch of notes with a sentence or two to capture thoughts, this shortcut compiles those thoughts into a single note. Less clutter and easier to review at the end of the day or the week.

Shortcut #2: Outlines, quick

First prompt

  • What’s the topic?

Prompts 2, 3, 4

  • Whats a sub-topic?

Prompts 5, 6, 7

  • What’s a thought related to each of the sub-topics above?

It takes all of that and then creates a note. So I get the following outline.

  • Topic
    • Sub-topic
      • Some thought
    • Sub-topic
      • Some thought
    • Sub-topic
      • Some thought

It adds that note to my ‘Topics’ notebook. Which now has a few hundred of these outlines.

My Topics notebook in Evernote
#Here’s a look at some topics from 2018#

I use this a few times a day. I’ll try to fill them in with more text. Sometimes they’ll become full posts or videos or outlines for podcasts. (Or I’ll use the shortcut specifically to start writing something I intend to publish.)

It’s a practice that helps prevent writer’s block, because you’ll always have an outline about something that you can start typing away on.

Shortcut #3: Journaling

I try to use this every day but have a bunch of versions of this shortcut that I’ve been using a ton lately. I’ll need to write a post in the future about how I modify this one shortcut for other topics I’m writing about.

In any case, here’s how the version in the video works. You tap the button and then it cycles through prompts

  • What are you looking forward to today?
  • What movement will you do today? (reminder to at least take a walk)
  • What’s your work highlight for the day?
  • What made you laugh recently?
  • What did you learn recently?

Very straightforward to just open the shortcut and start answering questions. By the end of it, I have a little bit of the day planned (workout and work), a little bit of active recall (what’d you learn), and a little bit of positivity (looking forward and laughing).

That’s it (and some thoughts for future posts)

I do want to share these Shortcuts but need to clean them up a bit for sharing — I also want to switch the last step output from Evernote to Apple Notes so that pretty much anyone with an iPad or iPhone can use them. Along with sharing those in a post, I’ll try to put a walkthrough together of that last shortcut. It can be a great starter for learning how the Shortcuts app works and so you can start customizing your own shortcuts.

But for now, check the video out above! (Or on YouTube here)