One of the things that I've always struggled was to find time to journal. I tried mobile apps, notes apps, journaling before bed or on my lunch breaks. But it was always unsustainable, and I never had more than 10-15 minutes to write. I was either too tired to journal before bed or I had no time throughout the day. And I've been thinking about writing (including blogging more) for months!

So I saw this 30min pocket of time in my mornings. I remembered a book I read during the pandemic about writing practice and also some articles about morning pages, which I will get to in a minute.

My realisation was that using my mornings to write was the best use of those 30 minutes. These were the steps I took to make it happen.

Finding a reason and a method

I went back to the book about writing practice. The book is: “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within” by Natalie Goldberg. Re-Reading this book was the catalyst: I noticed this pocket of free time, connected it with my urge to write more and a technique to follow... And voila, a space for writing practice was born.

Natalie Goldberg describes a simple practice: set up a timer for any amount of time you have available, and start writing. Whatever it is on your mind, just write. Don't worry about punctuation or grammar. Don't edit, just write. You can choose a theme, a topic, anything, or write whatever you feel like in the moment.

Another popular method is the Morning Pages, described by Julia Cameron in her book “The Artist's Way”. The practice is to write 3 handwritten pages (equivalent of 750 words) every morning, every day. Stream of consciousness writing. You can burn the pages later.

I prefer the practice described by Natalie Goldberg because it's more flexible. She actually encourages us to go back and re-read our entries to extract some ideas and good pieces of writing. I highly recommend her book. It's is a delightful read. She connects writing with mindfulness Zen practice, which pretty much aligns with my feelings on writing.

“When you write, don’t say, “I’m going to write a poem.” That attitude will freeze you right away. Sit down with the least expectation of yourself; say, “I am free to write the worst junk in the world.” You have to give yourself the space to write a lot without a destination.” — Natalie Goldberg

How am I doing it

I prefer to type using a full sized keyboard. So my steps are:

1. I sit down at my home office desk

2. Open up my notes app (Standard Notes) and go to my Daily Notes folder to create a new note

3. Set up a timer from 20 min to 30 min (how much I have available that day)

4. Start writing whatever comes to mind until the alarm goes off.

I'm not hard on myself. I will miss some days, but I strive to do it most days.

My timer beside my keyboard

The results

For me it has been a little cathartic experience (in a good way).

Just by having this space to pour out my thoughts into text reduces my anxiety. I never thought it could be that simple.

It's like a mindfulness practice. Because I'm in the moment, transcribing my thoughts. And by transcribing them, they loose power. Worrisome thoughts are not worries anymore. They become fleeting thoughts. It has been a powerful tool to use with therapy. My days are lighter!

For me the important thing here is writing privately. It wouldn't work for me if I was publishing these entries on the internet. It is an intimate mind dump. It is a space to throw it all out. It is not pretty, or logic or even coherent. But sometimes there are good things in there that I will use to write a blog post, for example.

By having these morning writing sessions I have more headspace for ideas. Writing ideas. Life ideas. Fun ideas. I am reading better. I'm feeling less anxious. I'm not writing to please anybody. It's just for me. And it's wonderful.

#writing #standardnotes #journaling #journal #mindfulness #NoisyMusings

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I discovered Write.as in 2018 and that was the first time I saw Markdown. I used to have my blog on Medium at that time because I loved the writing experience there (I used Tumblr before that). Then I moved all my writing to Write.as. I love the minimalist interface and distraction-free environment.

I used Write.as for about a year and something happened in my life that made me look for complex solutions. Go figure... Or maybe I just wanted to try WordPress to see what it was all about.

WordPress was... overwhelming! Bloated with stuff I didn't need or wanted...

And then they changed to this new editor. I didn't want to write there anymore. It was cumbersome! So I started using Evernote, Word, OneNote to write. Then I would copy-paste into WordPress. What a mess! I made lots of experimentation. None of them pleased me. Formatting issues were endlessly annoying!

And now I'm back at Write.as 💜. Re-learning Markdown, and loving it!

For the past year I got into this spiral of testing productivity apps, creating complicated workflows, having a bunch of tools. I'm re-thinking everything now.

Write.as is the perfect blogging tool. I feel home again.

And that led me to explore plain text tools. Like Standard Notes. What a great capturing tool! And then there is Obsidian for connecting ideas! I'm inspired by this indie-web movement, open source efforts, attention resistance initiatives.

Embracing simplicity again. It feels good.

Stay curious!

#noisymusings #opensource #writeas #writing

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

1. Start a blog to write things down and organize list(s) and thoughts about life, universe and everything.
2. Reduce time browsing Facebook drastically: it is really depressing when you realize you’ve spent half an hour on Facebook and the most useful thing you saw was some news about a cool book coming out (and it was just some advertising, actually…). Note: I got inspired by this post @TheOnion — a must-read all you Facebook slaves!!
3. Okay, there was just one more cool thing on Facebook today: some cute art saying that making lists keeps us creative. Yeah. Lists. Great.
4. Say “no” more often. It is good.
5. No multitasking. Multitasking is bad for your brain (there was some study I read about this, but I’ve lost the link, sorry).
6. Assume my antisocial side, no need to feel bad if you don’t enjoy karaoke.
7. Just say “no”.
8. Sometimes people don’t care about what you find essential in your work, well f@#* them.
9. Swim today. No excuses.

The list was called “A list out of boredom” when I wrote it. And after that I tried to continue blogging, but it actually didn’t work out very well. Looking back, I realize today that it was a difficult year for me. I had to make choices. I skipped many activities I usually enjoyed, but at least I had a main goal in mind, and I’ve managed to complete it. It was a big and long project: a master’s degree.

I was completely exhausted after this achievement! I needed some time to cool down and reorganize myself. I started making changes in my life, including routines, habits, life style and so on. I stumbled upon GTD, minimalism, paperless life, zero waste lifestyle, simplicity. And all those things changed my world view. And are still changing me.

I’m still in the process, and now I’ve found time and energy to dedicate myself to this blogging project.

In a way, I believe I’m going through some changes which, hopefully, are for the better. From the things I wrote on that list in 2012 I can say today that I have achieved them all, one way or another. I see that as a sign of growth and evolution. I’m very happy about it!

And maybe that’s what this blog is all about, besides thoughts about life, the universe and everything!

#writing #noisymusings #blogging

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.