Publishing Habit

A habit is an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary. In some sense habits makes our lives more automatic.

When we think about habits a few popular ones pop in our head. Reading, writing, jogging, journalling etc. The commonality in all of this is it is done by you for you. Can this framework be pushed? Can shipping or publishing be a habit? What would that mean to the creator? What merits and demerits to consider? The questions were countless. the best way to answer these questions is to just do.

In the beginning of the year I decided to do two simple experiments.

Experiment:

1. Publish a blog post here everyday.
2. Publish a sketch here everyday.

It is almost 29 days today and here are my 10 key learnings:

1. Unlike other habits that you have for yourself, publishing has two layers to it. One is, you doing it and the other is, you packaging and publishing it. These are two different activities.
2. Publishing is a high leverage habit because before hitting publish, the human in us wants it to be well crafted. Human pride at work.
3. Even if you have zero followers and zero likes, you still feel the accountability for putting things out in the public.
4. You think on your feet and you make it happen everyday. (As a reflection, I should invest some time to think about a publishing calendar 🙈)
5. It is fast. It doesn't allow you to overthink. It makes you smarter. It pushes you hard to repurpose some old content. It makes you check the box somehow. I was just amazed how much I got done consistently.
6. Friction and resistance is made NIL (almost) because the software (my blog or my instagram) is always open waiting for me to put out something. I don't have to set something up.
7. The best part is it has become an archive of my thoughts. I cherish the things that matter to me.
8. I am documenting my evolution in public and it makes me responsible.
9. I might not have something awesome to say everyday but the ability to show up and say, "this is my perspective, this is what I see, here is how you can also use it" has been liberating. Being useful in small ways makes me feel grounded and responsible.
10. It pushes me hard to think about the micro steps, reduce the pre and post steps,  organize my documentation, squeeze the tools I use to a minimum makes me creative and grounded around getting things done.

Progress >>> Perfection

To become prolific in something, you need progress everyday.

P.S: Don't listen to advices that say, write only when you have something profound to say. Chances are you will never write.

Practice everyday. Document everyday for yourself not for anyone else. That is the best form of art I have created so far.

🥂 to practice!