How To Write 200 Words Every Day

Why Writing Every Day

All you need to be supremely good at something is to just do it and learn from the result. And then do it some more. It’s that simple.

The problem lies in the misconception that becoming great is about doing great things, that the quality of your output has to be outstanding. School taught us to be afraid of not being great: poor quality results in bad grades, and bad grades result in suffering.

Real life is different. There is no curriculum. Life is entropic. What works on a given day for a given person in a given situation might not tomorrow. This is why education is an experimental process at heart. You need to go through the cycles several times to come up with some form of truth. Quantity, over quality.

But quantity is not enough either. Our bodies are aligned with the 24-hour window called a day. In order to tap into your full biological potential, you need consistency. Consistency has a much deeper effect than the quantity or quality of your work, which is why you need to develop habits. A daily habit is easier to develop than a weekly habit because there is no willpower involved. No calendar to check, no gargantuan output to cram into a few given days: daily habits are more achievable. This is why 200 words is a great goal for a daily word count―just enough to write something meaningful.

If you want to improve your writings, writing is the best thing you can do today. Now, let me tell you some tips to get through each day as painlessly as possible.

Tips to write daily

It is assumed in project management that the most important task should be tackled first. This is why publishing your 200 words should be the first thing you do in the morning. Or as Mark Twain puts it, ”eat the frog”. Decision fatigue is at its lowest during the first 2/3 hours after you wake up.

It doesn’t mean you have to write in the morning. For some people, tiredness favors creativity, so writing right before going to bed could be the optimal time for you. Just find the right time-window for you to sit down and get writing.

Finding topics can be the hard part of writing your daily 200 words. Whenever you have an idea, write it down in your phone or in a block note. Scribbling down topics is usually not enough. It’s more efficient to add a one-liner next to an idea, or even better, a small outline describing the main points you are trying to make.

You can find many writing prompts online, but coming up with your own develops your creativity. Sometimes random ideas strike me and I just note them down. Another way to do it is to sit down and force-generate them. The more you do it, the more you flex your idea muscle, and that will prove beneficial to you in all areas of life.

Just like everyone else, I have bad days where I lack inspiration. Truth is, everything is a potential topic, but few feel exciting. The good news is that 200 words are quickly scribbled once you stop whining. The voice in your head giving you excuses can be shut down. Two cases: you either have things you must write about or not. In the former case, just sit down and do the work. Otherwise, any topic will do.

Great cooks can amplify the savors of common ingredients to create a unique experience. The same goes for writers. Pick an object, a human being, an event, an idea. Find analogies. Trace it back to a first principle. You have to distort reality. To sublime the banal to make others think and experience.

Writer’s block? You are probably not experiencing enough. Get rid of your creative limits. Look with fresh eyes. Touch with pure hands. Smell. Taste. Hear. Go back to your inner child. Let your mind wander. Polish your observation skills. Awaken, consume life to the marrow, and you will never run out of topics to write about.

There are days where life gets in the way and you just don’t have time to write something. It happened to me a few times as well. In this case, it’s important to get pieces ready beforehand, so that you just have to hit publish when the day comes.

200 words are relatively small. You can be tempted to write a lot. It can make sense, but it’s better to write less to favor consistency. One thing I noticed is that long posts usually cover several ideas, so you can usually split them.