Making It Look Less Easy

The July Project: Number 23

I’m thrilled when people comment on my exercise regimen—or my blog—and say that I’ve inspired them, or that I make it look easy. But I wonder sometimes if “making it look easy” is doing a disservice to people who are working hard on their own projects for self-improvement. So tonight I want to come clean—it ain’t always easy.

I spent an hour last night trying to come up with a blog post. It was the end of a very long week with mountains of work, many hours of writing, two rowing classes, and a workshop to finish preparing …[MORE]

I Should Never Ever Take a Day Off

One of my daily routines—and a stated goal of my “projects” for the last four months—is to write at least 3,000 words per day. I started this practice almost two years ago. Usually, most of the 3,000 words are taken up by stream-of-consciousness blather, rants, and what I’d call verbal sketching—writing down what I might say if I were going to write about something in a serious manner.

Writing 3,000 words usually requires two periods of about 25 minutes each. I try to get through the first one before I do any other work each day and the second some time after dinner. Sometimes the “3,000-Word Initiative” (or 3kWI) exercises yield blog posts …[MORE]