One Apple A Day #73
It continues from the apple #72
This post was written the 8th of May on paper, while I was flying. Only Today I found the time to post it here. This is why it appears after post #79
In the beginning, to keep my mind fit, I kept spending 15 every morning studying Spanish. In this case, there was a purpose. Last January I made an amazing road trip in Patagonia, so I thought that to know a bit of Spanish was a good idea. I used Duolingo to study even if “study” is not the right word in this case. Duolingo is all about learning through practice in a playful way. My girlfriend was also learning Spanish at the same time. To raise the game, we added a bit of competition on our progress. We’ve been very consistent untile the day before my departure. And it paid off. I was able to communicate effectively in Argentina and Chile.
What helped in keeping the discipline to exercise every day, was a mix of elements. The first was the playful approach that kept me engaged all along. The second one was the short duration of the daily tasks; 15 minutes are easy to squeeze inside any day’s agenda. I did every morning before breakfast. The last one was the competition with my partner. We made ourselves accountable to each other, and no one wanted to be the first to drop off.
Once I was back from my adventure, I needed something else to keep my mind fit. I combined what I’ve learned from my previous experiences, and I started the One Apple A Day project. The idea is simple, every morning I spend a maximum of 10 minutes reading something related to writing. It can be a post about grammar, an article about writing techniques or just something inspirational to give me something to write about.
After that, I write for 15 minutes, never less. No predefined topics. Most of the time I just do a writing exercise suggested or inspired by what I read. In the end, I briefly review my piece and then I publish it on this blog.
The main rules of this project are all derived from my previous experiments:
No big goal. Yes, I’m doing this to improve my writing skills, but I don’t have any specific goal, like writing a book or things like that. I feared that a big goal would put to much pressure on this project and I want to keep it light and enjoyable.
Keep it short. There are days on which I feel inspired, and I can write for more time. But it’s not necessary, to complete my daily task only 10+15 minutes are needed. That is the gap that I have between breakfast and when I start to work. This way I can keep the consistency I need in the long term.
Go public. I’m a master at finding excuses. As I wrote at the very beginning of this series of posts, I struggle with goals. One of the reasons is that I’m super at justifying myself when I don’t accomplish something. I can’t be the one controlling myself, so I decided to publish what I write, every day.
Measure. Everything becomes boring if you don’t see results. In this case, I don’t have a specific goal to use as a reference, but I want to be sure I’m growing and improving my skills. I configure a small form on Google that I receive every day via email. On the form, I just trace if I completed or not my “Apple” for the day if it was harder or easier than the day before and if I did better or worse than the day before. Just the fact of having to answer makes me aware of my progress.