Breaking my longest daily writing streak

How do I consistently practice when the catalysing rituals don't occur?

location Raleigh,  NC,  US

Saturday was the first day I missed this daily writing practice.

It’s something I’ve had a continual challenge with over the past few years: regularly scheduled interrupted flows of rituals.

Weekends are something that came out of the labor movement—in the United States, conceptually began in the 1800s, but didn’t become law until 1938 with the Fair Labor Standards Act1.

I want to honor weekends, and those times of rest, but I lose my ritual of writing.

Currently, this is the first thing I do when sitting down for the day, before focusing on my goal for the day. It’s the moment of quiet before starting, but: in a specific location, at a specific time, in a specific flow.

A photograph of a woman practicing calligraphy letters, with a wide assortment of knick knacks and utensils surrounding the paper she's writing on. There are champagne glasses filled with bubbly that has no more bubbles, water glasses for humans and pens, potato chips, ink pots, potatoes to stab with pens, and papers all around to practice.
Shot at a calligraphy class, taught by Oh Pretty Paper

Consistency for consistency’s sake

Consistency isn’t a motivator for me. At least, it’s not an intrinsic motivator.

The long-term benefits that consistency can bring is well ingrained, intellectually. However, it doesn’t get my internal motivator running.

I’m in the midst of reading a few books—

—and they prompt me to reflect on my working patterns & behaviors.

I’m not finished with them yet, but it’s where my head is today.

What would this look like if it were fun?

I enjoy finding coincidences, puns, and unintentioned patterns. One very fun thing was, within the first 100 pages of both Feel Good Productivity and Slow Productivity both authors shared stories of the late Richard Feynman.

Each spoke on separate stories, each boiling down to how Professor Feynman worked differently: he sought joy.

Abdaal shares how leaning into joy & play brought Feynman out of a research slump, ultimately leading to Nobel Prize in Physics…making sense of quantum electrodynamics because he was curious how some plates wobbled in the air.

Newport shares how Feyman created a myth for himself—that he was deeply irresponsible and didn’t do anything—to protect his long lengths of concentration time.

When Abdaal repeatedly asked himself this question in his book—what would this look like if it were fun?—I kept asking myself that about this.

I don’t yet have an answer

Substack is more fun writing than LinkedIn, Twitter, or even Medium to me. It’s more personal, and—I hope—will be more interactive with the people that read.

I’m going to keep being consistent, but give myself grace.

I may write more than one post today to compensate.

I won’t let a couple days missed knock me off the writing practice though.

I’ll figure out how I feel about missing and the consistency for consistency sake later on.

There’s no such thing as perfect, but practice pushes us closer towards it—towards better.

1 Weekends. (n.d.). Union-Built Matters. https://www.unionbuiltmatters.org/news/weekends