Top of Mind

I’m trying something new.

Ever since I started writing here on Medium in January of 2018 (not long ago, I know), I’ve struggled with an internal conflict between wanting to produce thoughtful content and wanting to produce more content. These two desires can clash, often preventing me from writing at all.

The truth is, we live in a fast-paced world where barriers to information dissemination are incredibly low. Unfortunately, for us techies this results in an attention span that sucks.

Within the span of a single day/hour/minute, priorities change, interests shift, and shit happens. This shift is nothing new, but it IS exacerbated by our need to always be “on.” While I’d liked to fight this notion eventually, I also want to write.

Great ideas don’t necessarily start as great. In fact, they start as something simply worth pursuing. Thus, shelving an interesting topic for a later date won’t work. I’m not implying that my writing will be great, but rather that from my perspective, a great idea for a piece won’t actually be great until I decide to put pen to paper and pursue, no matter the outcome.

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Remember that?

My goal when I joined Medium was to write and improve as I wrote more. I’ve done little of both.

So, I’m going to try something different. For every idea I have, I plan to finish the thought (i.e., write about it) by EOD. If not finished, it’s trashed. Rather than focus on length, the purpose of the exercise is instead to build a habit around consistently writing. This is turn, should make me a better writer and obviously allow for longer-form pieces to work their way in.

There — it’s in writing. There’s no turning back now. Let’s see how this goes.

Cheers,

Jackson