For years, and this is pretty embarrassing to admit, I had the goal to write blog posts. I learned a lot about website development. WordPress became a tool I knew well. Recently Hugo and static site generators have been my favorite hobby. I loved everything about website development. (Here comes the embarrassing part.) But I hated writing content.
I would fire up my favorite text editor or focused writing app and stare at the screen. Nothing came easily. I could sometimes eek out a post or two but never more and never for more than a few days at a time. My perception from my student days that I was a good writer took hit after hit because I couldn’t force myself to write posts consistently.
This all changed in August 2019. I had already started the process of moving most of the rest of my writing, from meeting notes to to do lists, back onto pen and paper. The day I decided to try and write a blog post long form on paper I felt the writer’s block dam burst and the words flowed.
This doesn’t mean that writing is easy for me. I don’t know if that will ever be true. But over the last six weeks I have finally been able to consistently write content that I want to share.
Changing my medium made all the difference.
I’ve found this works in a lot of areas. I now write notes to my kids instead of texts. They read them! They even reply in kind! Sending out handwritten invitations to dinner gets much better responses than an emails. And a snail mail letter makes an impression that a thousand pings or texts can’t match.
This isn’t a call for reversion away from technology. Just don’t count out the power of mediums you might not normally consider. Changing your environment and your medium can free your mind to do better work.
