Until the beginning of 2022, I started many side projects but completed almost none of them.

When I start a new side project, the first few days are usually very exciting - I finish a ton of work and I’m usually very motivated about what I’m doing. Soon after, this motivation starts to die out because either I’m not sure about my direction anymore or another new interesting idea comes along the way and steers me away.

I suffered with this problem for a while until I joined a writing course called Ship30, where there was social accountability to publish continuously for 30 days.

In the 33 days since I joined Ship30, I published 33 essays and didn’t miss a day. After 33 days though I wanted to know if I could still continue publishing without the accountability and without needing to publish one article per day. I wanted to write one better quality essay every 2 or 3 days.

Instead, for the next 15 days I didn’t publish any essay. (Until today..)

Here’s what I learned from it.

Constraints are critical to progress

Without realizing I had removed all constraints - I gave myself the freedom to look endlessly for an inspiring topic, I allowed myself to do freeflow writing without an outline, I let myself find the time to write as the day went and I thought I could write on my phone as I sat in a cafe. All of these bad decisions.

Looking back, it was the constraints that allowed me to finish any writing.

Initially when I wrote with these constraints like creating an outline format for my writing or not doing further research during my writing time, at the end I thought my quality of my writing could have been better. But now I realize it probably could be, sure, but it’s way easier to edit a completed essay and feel good about finishing it than going days with an unfinished one.

Attention is our biggest strength

Whatsapp pings, latest updates on the news, instagram stories, or emails I've forgotten to respond to - These things come up almost always when I sit to do something important.

Unfortunately, these interruptions are inevitable for most of us. In this world where attention is a currency for social media giants and is most deficit for us, attention also remains to be our progress differentiator. In other words, the longer we are able to hold our attention on one thing, the more progress we make on it, and thereby the more rewards we reap from it.

Meditation has been the most useful way for me to practice retaining attention. The simple practice of identifying when my mind wanders and bringing back to the moment has been extremely helpful in taking better control of my attention throughout the day.

Olivia fox from the book Charisma Myth shares techniques like focusing on our toes or breath for bringing our attention to the present.

Start with your emotion but stick with it till the end

Here’s a small piece of writing from Polina’s newsletter, The Profile, that resonated strongly with me -

I’ve always said that I’m not the most talented writer nor am I the best curator, but I am willing to bet that I will outlast and outwork the competition. Shane Parrish recently wrote, “The hardest part is the discipline required to do otherwise ordinary things for an extraordinarily long period of time, even when the results are barely noticeable.” He adds, “Extraordinary results come from ordinary people with uncommon consistency.”

It’s hard to stay consistent because the motivation that makes us start something doesn’t stay till the end. This is a problem at both a micro level ( sitting through the one hour and finishing that work ) and at a macro level ( working on the same project on the 8th day vs the 1st day ).

There are two techniques that have worked for me most effectively to deal with this - (1) writing down why I start working on something (2) breaking it down into tiny chunks that helps with some momentum.

When I continue to work on a project, say on the 23rd day, I’m going to have many other new and interesting ideas to work on. Instead when I break down the task I’m supposed to do into something so tiny that it seems easier to do as compared to starting a new task, I trick my brain into going back on track with my initial goal.

And by following the above 3 techniques, after almost 15 days of not writing I was able to get started again. It took me 1 hour and 33 minutes to finish writing this essay.