6-month process review on constrained creativity

it’s been exactly six months since i started writing under the constrained creativity framework. here’s what i’ve learned:

• rarely is 10 minutes isn’t enough time. i picked ten minutes because it felt doable on a daily scale. anything more felt unsustainable. i knew that any longer of a time block would result in my often feeling like i didn’t have time before work. an interesting insight is that sometimes i write for 20 minutes, do research and include links for another 5, and then edit the final post for 5. so many days i end up spending 30 minutes on the post. but i wonder if i told myself it was gonna take 30 minutes, would i still do it?
• rarely is 200 words enough. i set up a word limit to keep myself concise. but my experience shows that 200 words just isn’t enough, even if i’m keeping it brief. most of my posts end up between 250 and 400 words.
• my writing habit has been established. per my reading on habit building, a habit is established when it feels weirder NOT to do something than to do it.
• my writing anxiety is diminishing. not only has this practice helped me just get the words out onto the screen, it has also helped me start writing blog posts at work. having the space and flexibility to develop the writing muscles outside of work (this is my 50 post!) has had a positive impact inside of work. here’s my work author archive.
• having short blog posts to share is super convenient. now that i have written out my thinking on some of my favorite topics, it’s much easier to explain to people how and why i do what i do. this has happened on twitter a number of times (example). i’ve also sent posts to friends to help them understand my decision-making, workflow, or just share what i’m thinking about these days. super helpful, especially when i won’t see that friend for a while or want to start the conversation at a different place.
  

ok. reflection done. and now to adjust the constraints for the rest of 2016:

• writing for ten minutes and processing post and doing research for 10-20 minutes.
• 400 word post cap
• start tagging and categorizing posts (so i can send someone a whole topic if it’s important).

december, here i come!

ps - i have 2 followers. that’s weird. how did they find my stuff? i don’t appear to know them… who are you people?!?!