A reflection on the 600 word experiment
Background
On Apr3 I write about why I am performing a 600-word-experiment i.e, writing 600 words and making a post out of it, and publishing it. I have not been writing regularly in the past and would like to speeden the result of writing. I would like to solve problems that I currently have, discover essential stuff that I need to be doing. I have been procrastinating a lot during the weeks before and if it is really important that I figure out my life asap, then I need to expedite the whole writing and thinking process.
I have earlier(a few years back) worked on a 300 word experiment, where I am expected to just write 300 words a day. The point being to just get you started, which is usually the hardest part, i.e., waking up from your trans and sitting in front of a computer. I decided that I need to do more and so went on to force myself to write 600 words a day of “proper content” and publish it.
Measuring the means and not the end
Posts that I have written in this blog earlier than this last week are atleast 1k. In these older posts I feel it allows me to start a topic and cover a “good” chunk before I close. The method was to keep writing while I edit the essay now and then. As I write I come up with other things I want to write about and continue writing in that fashion. Sometimes I write whatever comes to my mind and then later edit them to different sections.
With the 600-word-experiment, it appears that I wouldn’t mind doing anything else other than the 600 word experiment, as I pushed the start of writing to as late as possible. My goal was clear! I needed to complete 600 words, read it once atleast, correct it and then post it by today. I had little time owing to procrastination. Every word I wrote told me that I am going to sleep sooner. This implicitly seems to hide in it, that I didn’t want to remove words. I was counting the time I was going to go to sleep with every word I wrote. So all tangents, attempts to discover other things, could stay put. I could however make a note of tangents to take up later. But I guess I had bigger problems to worry about, #600-word-experiment.
It was more about optimizing for the current experiment. I went for the ones that would be an easy target, with already formed arguments in the head. Only when I absolutely was empty did I look online for help (e.g., Heuristics and biases ), simultaneously looking at the clock as well, to make sure I don’t spend too much time here as I needed to write.
Purpose of life 3 was a bad joke, it was very hard to come up with content and then with this essay I was stuck with the problem, of what to write about. If I took one particular path, the essay will go on for a lot of words, i.e, it will take long to properly explain it. If I took another path, I had very little content. I was feeling sleepy already, I did spend time on deciding which content path I should go in. In the end I wrote some shit, for namesake and bailed.
In summary, it was not ideal to research, write and edit topics at all. It appears that I have a great deal optimized to meet the means. The End I still leave it to an objective reader to give me feedback. I procrastinated a lot until I reached the moment where I had to start writing, which resulted in sleeping late. I hated the idea of writing during this week, it gave me a lot of pressure. I would like to keep the sanctity of this essay series by removing this set of posts.
Future plan
The goal is to write a lot more, crack and solve problems. To address the problem that I don’t write everyday, lets try out the 300 word experiment again. I will write 300 words a day atleast. No obligation/constraints for me to post it, or write well or anything. My hypothesis is that all I need is a little push (300 words a day), to write more and produce content to analyze problems and solve them. This experiment should lead to producing a greater rate of posts/ words/arguments than first three months. The pressure to write 300 words is bearable and achievable easily.
Procrastination: Ideally, it would be nice to finish writing by 10, floss and read harry potter and sleep. There by waking up early and going to work early. But what happens is I push the whole writing until the end of the day as much as I can. This is not good, and can be attributed to the useless, hardly engaging Facebook and youtube. In an attempt to not have things to do other than write, I propose to add further constraints, that until I finish writing he quota for the day, I don’t get to touch my phone to browse on facebook or youtube, after 7 pm.
Future Future plan
With the belief that producing quantity over quality is good for me right now, I proceed further, by increasing the number of words, adding more constraints such as writing full length posts on weekends.
Evaluation
Today I wrote 446 words. Of course it needs editing for final quality. But it was much more peaceful, I will put it up when I am done with the article.
On day 3 Monday, I see that I am procrastinating, by watching Youtube while trying to write my 300 words a day.
ON day 4 I plan to wrap the essay and kill several lines, because I can.