The Everyday Practice

A few days back I decided to start daily blogging.

I’ve always been fascinated about the idea of daily activities.

Some time back I looked at my last decade of writing, and I realized how inconsistent I have been. I thought I had written for the majority of those days, but looking at the graph helped see how mistaken I was.

(Ok I do a lot of handwriting in my notebook, and that’s not reflected on any of my graphs, but I wouldn’t expect note notebooks to make such a difference. Plus, it is unpolished writing for myself only. So I don’t think of it as helping honing my craft of writing)

I actually have been daily writing now for 189 days straight on a fiction project. Here’s the track record so far:

One aspect that my current practice doesn’t have is the idea of completion. Everyday I write a little bit more of this one book, but I never get to finish. I see progress. but I don’t get the dopamine hit I crave.

I actually did write, edit and publish all in one day back when I did my 101ToF. For over 100 days, I published one piece of flash-fiction every day, without a break. The memory of that project (its’ already been XXX years!), is indelible and speaks to the deep impact the daily practice of publishing something every day had on me.

The obsession goes way back

Persistence and endurance will make you omnipotent

—Casey Neistat

And just today I was reminded of one of the original OGs of the everyday project: Casey Neistat. At least this was somebody from many many years back who I remember talking about his commitment to a daily activities.

So today I went to Youtube to his archives to try to uncover his daily vlogs from back in the day. Here are some of the key milestones along Casey’s journey of daily vlogging:

First vlog: MY FIRST VLOG
One year of vlogs: 1 trick to 2.5 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS
Last vlog: my last daily vlog
Last vlog again: i’m ending the vlog
[Bonus] On burnout of daily vloggin: Casey Neistat Opens Up About The Reality Of Job Burnout & Daily Vlogging vs Happiness

Why am I fascinated about daily practice?

So why try this now exactly?

Above all I want to continue to learn, and I’m convinced that blogging can be a great way to learn by doing.

I guess part of it is to see what comes out of it. It’s an experiment, right? Let’s see what happens if I commit to blog and publish everyday.