I should have written this post a couple of days ago, to account for October. If you just stumbled upon this, know that right now I am doing a 365 days writing challenge, meaning I’m publishing an article on this blog every single day of 2021. At the end of each month, I’m also doing a small recap, to see how the month went on, what worked, what benefits or drawbacks appeared as a result of this challenge. That’s what I meant with “to account for October”. Well, November is just as good as a month to publish this recap, I guess.
October was a hectic month. Just browsing through what happened makes me a bit dizzy. I ran my first marathon since the Covid-19 clusterfuck, I minted my first NFT for an article, I traveled to Romania and back (for the first time in 3 years) and, amidst all this whirlwind, I still got time to publish my daily article. But it wasn’t easy. I would say this was by far the most difficult month, primarily because lack of time and energy.
There were a couple of days when I almost missed it and had to get up from bed before midnight and rush an article through. Needless to say, sticking to a certain topic, or a certain routine, was borderline impossible. I wrote about marathons, crypto currencies adoption, location independence, meaningful relationships and a few other even stranger areas. I wrote from coffee shops, from airbnbs, from airports or from my bed, before falling asleep. But I wrote.
It’s good to look back and see the breadcrumbs I left. Some articles are better than others, and I’m talking about my perspective on them, they are better than others to me, not like in terms of traffic, or whatever. As always, traffic was completely still, no big swings here.
It’s probably the first month when I feel the benefits of this challenge plateauing. After ten months, this is expected. The improvement that I could have acquired reached a certain peak, and it’s hard to go over that level without a significant effort (which I won’t do, I won’t try to extend the period of the challenge or change its structure).
Publishing an article ever day for 10 months made me write easier, a bit more disciplined (didn’t need improvement in that area, but it’s nice to see it) and forced me to come up with some new perspective every day. But it also felt like a chore way more than before. I felt tired and flattened. At least one third of the month I relied on sheer discipline and I just wanted it done.
There are less than 2 months left now from this challenge. It’s nice to see the end after all this effort and I’m looking forward to it.
Great article, thank you for sharing your feelings during the journey. I think to stick to that challenge was as hard as I can imagine. You should be proud of yourself. Also you gave me an insight about what sticking to a routine may help you accomplish because that’s what I am struggling with right now after I have been laid off my job last February.
Thanks a lot and go ahead.
Mona