About writing…from an engineers perspective.
The second most common word in the article is “me”.
- writing – 24times
- me – 10 times
- words – 7 times
The tool used for this analysis would not consider the single letter word “I” but by replacing every occurrence of ” I ” with ” bbq “, the count for this string was now in first place.
- “bbq” – 26 times
- writing – 24 times
- me – 10 times
The author’s point is not lost in all this self-absorption though. A few well thought out words a day, written to no one in particular, is probably a healthy habit to get into. He mentions a tool , http://thinklegend.com/commit/ , that reminds him to stick to his commitment to write everyday. I’m not a fan of trying to use automation to enforce good habits. What happens when the battery runs down? How much of what you write will be to fulfill the commitment, not to improve your writing? Hemingway didn’t use an app on his android phone and sometimes he was too hungover to write. Don’t turn it into a guilt trip.
As is so often the case, the comments to this person’s article are often as insightful as the original article. I particularly liked the comment that said
“…Publish often; it’s the same as releasing an early version of a software product. Reid Hoffman (founder LinkedIn) talks about shipping early versions of a product that embarrass you; if they don’t embarrass you, you shipped too late. I think this applies to writing…”
This may not apply to email messages, but generally, the act of going public with a piece of work makes the whole process seem less daunting. Perfection is the enemy of…getting anything done.
Ok, that’s my 322 words for the day.
-jgp