The lessons learned from doing a 100-day daily writing challenge

“Creativity follows commitment” – Grant Cardone

For the last 100 days, I wrote and posted daily thoughts in the form of short texts. I titled the series “Wandering Thoughts”, a challenge to test my creativity and improve my writing skills. To be honest, I never thought I would manage to complete this ridiculous challenge but somehow, you are currently reading the 100th episode of this long series.

I felt like I should explore in more details everything I learned during this challenge by writing a good old blog post. This was truly one of the most challenging things I have ever done creatively and therefore all lessons below are a reflection of the work put into this challenge. From understanding how creativity and inspiration work to finding out my productivity sweet-spot, I hope you enjoy the read.

Why do it in the first place?

I honestly don’t know how I managed to convince myself to start. David, I guess you did a good job of pitching me this idea. Originally the idea was to create something for 100 days straight as a means of self-reflection and creative expression. To give a sense of urgency to the creative process and release out to the world something every day.

If there was one activity in my creative process that I would like to improve was writing. If you do anything for 100 days straight, you are bound to become better at it right? It was the perfect chance. No questions asked.

Each day I would create a text and image surrounding the topics of self-development and my personal thoughts and published on my Instagram. How hard could it be?

Low Hanging Fruit

The initial excitement about the challenge made everything feel easy. There were so many things to write about, personal thoughts and points of view that I never managed to share. Those initial texts were quite easy to produce.

Effectively, low hanging fruit.

Because those thoughts were so easily accessible, it resulted in simple and short texts. The ideas were on the surface and therefore I didn’t have to put as much work to transform them into words. At the time, they were the best I could manage. Now they honestly feel like someone else wrote them.

However, writing became slightly harder halfway through the challenge. I couldn’t think of any ideas to write about and questioned if I could even write 100 texts without repeating myself. I collected all the fruit at the base of the tree of inspiration and to continue, I needed to grab a ladder and reach higher. Quickly thinking about an idea turned into a long search for inspiration.

Inspiration is unpredictable. Hard work is controllable.

Half of the battle was to come up with a subject to write about but occasionally, my muse would lend me a hand. During the challenge, between three and four thoughts were driven by an inexplicable source of creativity. Moments when I got into a flow state and writing became effortless.

However, these moments of inspiration were rare and impossible to predict. From one hundred texts, only four benefits from this sudden inspiration. That’s how important inspiration was: 0.04%. Don’t get me wrong, each text benefited from some level of inspiration but I’m referring to those moments where inspiration propelled me forward through the entire creative process. I learned not to rely on inspiration.

There is this misconception that you first need to be inspired to create. Sometimes it even sounds like one needs to wait for this divine intervention. “I’m not inspired today…but I will try again tomorrow!”. I now see this has another excuse to procrastinate creation.

This was the biggest lesson I learned by doing this challenge: hard work is the gateway to inspiration. Which means that 99.96% of the times, my creative process came down to staring at a blank sheet of paper waiting for words to appear. Not very sexy I know but that was the process. The hardest part was remaining seated and focused.

As long as I faced the task head first, I knew it was only a matter of time until I could come up with something. And this method worked every time, 100% success rate. Suck on that muse!

Productivity MasterClass

As I look back and see all the work I did for this challenge, I cannot help but feel proud and at the same time, dumbfounded. “How the hell did I manage to produce this much content? I could write a book with some much material!” If you are familiar with my content, you know how I love to study productivity but nothing comes close to what I have learned during these 100 days.

It taught me about my own internal mechanisms to turn on productivity mode and get into a deep work state. Yet, I cannot take all the credit. I believe this challenge had intrinsic characteristics which forced me to go through the creative process and perform well.

1. Daily activity (urgency)

By far, the most important characteristic of the challenge.

There’s something special about daily activities. In the past, I tried scheduling content creation by committing to weekly releases. For example, releasing a vlog every week. Instead of working a bit every day, I found myself procrastinating until the last days to start working on the video. It’s the good old Parkinson’s law working against me. But once weekly becomes daily everything changes.

Because of my full-time job, the only chance I had to write was during the evenings after work. Which meant that I had a short window of time to perform, so every moment of procrastination would result in fewer hours of sleep. My morning commute became brainstormings sessions to find a topic to write about. This constant feeling of urgency created the necessary headspace for me to execute. Still, another type of pressure was driving me.

2. A public show (accountability)

Peer pressure, or at least the illusion of it. In an attempt to grow my Instagram page, I decided to post my daily content as the description of a picture embodying the topic of the text. When I noticed people actually caring about what I had to say, things got serious.

Accountability is a powerful weapon and I honestly believe it allowed me to push through difficult times. My word was on the line and everyone would be able to witness and judge my failure. It turns out that people don’t care as much as I thought. There were three days where I didn’t manage to post and in my mind, everyone was wondering what happened.

Not even one person acknowledged it. Next day I compensated by releasing two texts but it made me see how powerful our minds can be at tricking us. It actually doesn’t matter if others will judge us as long as we do it to ourselves.

3. The right kind of challenge (feasibility)

It was challenging yet feasible. Once I got into the rhyme, I understood how much time and effort the daily content would require from me and I was ok with the transaction.

The logistics surrounding content creation were also in my favor. To write, I only needed a computer, fingers and my mind, all available to me at any moment. I also happen to have a boring life, a fixed daily routine which allowed me to always write in the comfort of my home. Perhaps if I was traveling, it would have been even more challenging.

My environment enabled me to be challenged solely by the creative process and my day to day emotional state. I didn’t depend off anybody but myself to succeed.

The verdict: Was it worth it?

In addition to all the lessons I mention until now, this challenge taught me the importance of committing to deep work.

The first texts I wrote were simple and short but with time, I started to dig deeper for topics. The amount of daily work increased but also the quality of the content. Yet, the effort required of me to get into start writing never changed. Except for the moments of inspiration, it was always a struggle to start the process. However, once it started, it was easier to keep writing better content.

I feel like I came out the other end a better writer, in the sense that it’s easier for me to transform ideas into words in such a way that it feels natural. Like I found the mental connection between my thoughts and fingers. It was quite a big effort time wise but I guess that’s what it takes right?

On average, the creative process of writing, producing the image and posting it on Instagram would take me around 1.5 hours of focused work. Some days were harder than others but I’m glad I invested all this time.

As I look back at all these thoughts, I see a collection of mementos reflecting my mood, daily struggles and personality. Memories that turned this challenge into something quite special.

What’s next?

“Wandering Thoughts” was the most challenging and rewarding content series I have done until this day. Yet, thank god it’s over.

In a way, I’m glad it’s finished but on the other hand, I cannot help but look at how much I was able to produce under these conditions. So now the challenge is to integrate the intrinsic characteristics of this challenge into my regular content. Breakdown projects into daily goals, make myself accountable and produce a deliverable every day.

So… let the real challenge begin.

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Check out the result of this challenge by visiting Road Delta’s Instagram page. Let me know what you think about it 🙂

[This blog post was originally posted on RoadDelta.com]