I have successfully completed 15 minutes of writing each day. Bam.

A confession: I far exceeded the 15 minutes every day. It’s not a humble-brag, but rather I want to unearth fears I have discovered in the face of writing a lot. My mind has entertained them a few times, flashing up negative images and giving me smack talk.

1. The first fear is juicing myself dry. The mind is saying ‘You’re not going to be able to think of anything to write about. You won’t have any content for this stupid blog which you never should have set up. You’re in the honeymoon period.’ My mind has taken me to a future place where I’m feeling stressed looking at the blank pages in front of me, willing myself to come up with something that sounds original and innovative but nothing is coming.
2. There is then an insecurity that is anchoring on to frustrations I’ve had in the past with creative processes, like making music. ‘The end product is not how you had it sounding in your head and it’s most likely shit.‘
3. The third fear is the one that is most front of mind, in that my free time is artificially high now because I am in between busy periods (changing jobs). My mind envisions myself as busy and stressed out from my new job, and I simply will make choices that mean I don’t write. It’ll be easier to do something else instead.

Okay, cool, thanks Mind. Now I’m aware of those things, let me try to address them:

1. Awareness – I recognise I have these fears, doubts and insecurities. There may be more lurking in the depths, and I’ll try to recognise them when they come up. I see you Mind and what you’re saying. I understand that I can’t will the fears away. They will always be there. I also understand that they must be common, it’s unreasonable to assume I’m the only one who has these fears. One step further, people have these fears but still manage to put pen to paper and express themselves to the wider world. I know that to be true, evidenced by the amount of wordage I have come across in my life.
2. Awareness – right now, I can feel the pressure of my bum on the chair, my arms on the kitchen table, my feet on the floor. Right now, my breath in and out my nose. Right now, the fears, doubts and insecurities are being realised 0%. They are only relevant in the context of me writing this blog post now.
3. Intellectual reasoning – let me self-validate and give the ‘sensible, rational’ counter-argument to each point i.e. what I know I should think and would say to a friend if they voiced these fears:
   • Juicing myself dry – This could happen, let’s say with 49% probability on any given stretch of time. However, it hasn’t happened yet (albeit over 5 days). I have written multiple ideas in that time which can tide me over if I can’t think of any new topic in the moment. If I reach that point then I can address it by finding some tools to work through a mental block.
   • Past insecurity – Okay yes, that is unavoidable because it is history. It also is not right now. The only thing that exists right now is the image in my head, the word ‘inadequacy’, and what I imagine to be shame represented by a slight tension in my upper abdomen. This blog post is getting done right now, in the present. Some other factors to consider:
     • This blog has some accountability through being public from the start, so I’ve already removed the ability to choose between showing or not showing anyone, of which I would otherwise forever stay in the ‘not showing anyone’ world.
     • I seem to have less physical tension to expressing myself in public with writing vs. music, maybe because I write emails, memos, Whatsapp, maybe because my mindset is better primed for it right now. I think of it as ‘safer’.
   • New job = no time – This could happen, let’s say with 49% probability during the first month I have no time to write, and then gradually I’ll have more time thereafter which will mean an increasing probability of me being able to get back to it. I can prioritise time for this and compromise on other stuff if necessary.
4. Intellectual reasoning – okay, I feel that I have presented reasonable counters to these fears. Now, can I brainstorm any specific, actionable ideas for creating conditions that increase the likelihood that the fears don’t materialise? Shit like ‘Be consistent or Be the champion you are’ does not count as it is not an action.
   • The morning routine is doing you well re getting up early and creating time for yourself first thing. When you start the new job you need to leave the house at 8.20am to get in for 9am. Continue with going to bed early, in bed by c. 10pm, so that you can continue to get up early (6.20/6.30am). Aim for 6am. This will help when you start your new job because i) you’ll have time for walking, of which one of the downstream effects seems to be generating ideas based on the weekend, and ii) you’ll have time for writing itself. Your other morning activities you can work around these two.
   • At the new job you might forget the ‘documenting’. Set a reminder now on your phone to review this when you are one week into the new job. Done. A recurring weekly reminder: ‘ARE YOU DOCUMENTING YOUR LIFE/CAPTURING? Do a catching motion with your hand. From 15th Nov 2022 version of yourself at the kitchen table.’ This might not be enough to re-engage, but let’s see. Update (next day): Changing to be ‘Open up Perspective RIGHT NOW and document as of RIGHT NOW environment, thoughts, feelings, taste, touch etc, from the version of you that you want to be – energised at the kitchen table 15th Nov 2022.
   • Not specific, but on the to do, sort out your method of documenting ideas. You prefer handwritten but your current notepads are not private enough when out in public (you know that from when you tried to journal a few months ago on the tube) but you also complain internally about spending too much time on your phone and don’t want to type because it hurts your thumbs. Even when on your phone, you don’t know how best to organise the writing so that it all makes sense. Book in your calendar ‘Try the app ‘Perspective’; tomorrow at 9am, which you’ve had on your phone for ages and not really used. That might be a good documenting system. Update (next day): Went for a walk immediately after writing out this revised post and started using Perspective. It’s ideal.

Off you go. Publish.

Edited out through the process of this post

1. I liked writing with the framing of ‘documenting‘ i.e. capturing the moments as they are in my life as close to the experience/thought as possible. I had expected to stick the writing into a set 15 minutes at a specific time of the day, which I did do and continue to expect to do, but there was something great about the additional write-whenever mode. Let’s see if I can pull it off.
2. There were definitely a few logistical kinks I need to address that I hope to resolve in due course, questions such as in what format should I write, how should I write, how do I collect and organise the writing into a blog post, do I blog directly or write off-blog and then compile the best bits, when do I write the blog? I hadn’t expected to run into these issues so soon, but they require some critical thinking and I haven’t done any, so it’s all over the place.
3. Funny, I’m writing about how I’ve written down all these ideas yet none ended up in this post. Update: Some concepts did in the secondary drafts.
4. About this weekend: The mind was a rich and fertile land so it was easy to harvest, which was enjoyable. Bit much no?
5. Blog post has taken 3h30 hours from start to end, and is basically unrecognisable from the first draft. More of a time commitment then the writing in the first place.