fooled by freewriting

new habits

Starting new habits to try to improve some aspect of my life is not a problem. Trying to maintain any of them beyond a week or so is a different thing altogether.

For a good example, I must have tried to train myself to touch-type properly many times over the years.

I've always managed to get myself past the initial learning mode, and feel pleased with myself as I type, slowly but surely without looking, using some online training course to refresh the dormant muscle memory of finger positions and movements.

I start to get them. Aha, I think, cracked it.

But I haven't yet of course.

What I have done is re-learned the basics of how, but not actually practised it enough to make it work for me in the real world yet. Again.

I have envisaged the words streaming out on to the screen as fast as I can think them, the letters appearing as if by magic... but I haven't put the hours in, I haven't committed. I drop trying to touch-type as the frustration of constant backspacing to correct my typos make things much slower going than my old hunt-and-peck ways.

Gotta put the hours in... don't put the hours in. Too distracted, and never really improve enough to achieve my goal of fast and effortless, no-look tippity-tappety mastery. There are lots of other tabs open and to-do's to do, a lot of which just popped up in my mind seconds ago as I deleted yet another 'i' to change it for the 'o' it was meant to be.

Another habit I have wanted to develop, but always fail to develop, is journalling. Nothing fancy, not your bespoke notebooks and fancily-illustrated and fountain pen hand-written stuff, just a brain dump diary and basic record of days and thoughts.

I fail every time.

I've tried having a specialised application, I've tried with prompts, I try having a blank space and just writing in a notes or word processing app, but nothing has stuck. There are bits of the latest new attempt that lasted a week or so all over the place on this computer.

I changed the focus of the habit and tried calling it 'Morning Pages' and just had the aim of managing around 300 free-form words to get my writing juices going in the mornings.

That lasted about a week, then it slips, then it's forgotten entirely. Apart from I never get round to deleting the file, so it's still there, occasionally mocking me when I catch sight of it.

But I have cracked it now.

I think.

freewriting

I have completed doing an entry every day in August so far, which is a relative triumph and needs a fanfare.

Da-da-da-daaaahh

That'll do it.

I created a new single text note in Obsidian. Just a blank page. I called it 'freewrite' and pinned it. Then every morning, before I do anything else, I open it, put a new header for the new date in, then just write. Anything at all, no prompts or templates, with a nominal target of around three hundred words.

I have only the one stipulation about how it's done.

I must touch-type it.

Aha, that's the secret sauce.

Posts can still wander around all over the place, just like my mind does, but a lot end up being a journal-style recap of the day before. Really they are Morning Pages, a free-form mind-starter, but with an element of being necessary practise to improve typing speed too. Sort of aimless, but with an aim.

It's like I'm trying to fool the two opposed aspects of my psychology, the routine-loving organiser and the novelty-seeking anarchist.

It is still frustrating sometimes, particularly on MS-addled mornings when my mental acuity and physical accuracy is low. But having a nominally 'finite' target of 300 words seems to be short enough to let me complete an entry, before the dreaded mental tab switcher gets itchy enough to start hopping about and needing a distraction.

I can always make that longer as my skill improves. To help stop me spoiling the flow, I often type it with my eyes closed so I'm not constantly backspacing to make corrections as I go.

The good thing here is that I can feel the benefit of the practising, and the proof of that is the 700-odd words you have just read which I have done with my eyes closed.

Although you didn't see the stupid amount of editing it took to make it readable.