Write to assess failure

Writing is a superpower. I can rant and pace the room, or I can sit and ruminate all day long, and get nowhere. But if I sit down to write about a problem, often I will dig up a solution.

Sometimes writing doesn’t present a solution. But once I’ve seen the problem, my brain starts working in the background and eventually figures something out.

And sometimes the problem is not seeing the problem. As soon as I’ve written, I see what’s happening and the problem is solved.

That’s why when I fail in my writing goals, I write about my failure.

I had a problem recently. The app I was using to write runs in a web browser, and being online led too easily to distractions.

In February I switched to a device, the Freewrite, but I wasn’t writing there like I was on the app. So I wrote about what was different about those two experiences and realized I was defining my work in the application as these fifteen minute writing sprints from 8:30 to 10:30. That tiny change in context had a huge impact on my writing.

I tried writing with the app again, but the distracted writing came back.

Yesterday, I tried the Freewrite again, and at the start of my first session a solution presented itself. I use tiny sticky notes to recreate what I do in the app. Each note represents a fifteen-minute segment and I stick them to the side of the Freewrite’s screen. As I finish each segment I move the note over to the other side of the screen. Eight little sticky notes with times written on them fixed my mindset. Somehow it works.

If I hadn’t taken time to write about the problem, I don’t think I would have even understood what was getting in my way.