I’m Taking the 1000 Words Per Day Challenge
Writing Will Change My Life
I woke up on Sunday morning and stumbled into the kitchen. While I was making my coffee, I had an epiphany. The one thing that separates me from the success of my dreams is writing. Pure and simple.
I thought of creators who have made it big. Sure, video can help with building an audience, but the true differentiator is writing.
On Sunday night, I turned on YouTube and there was an interview with Nathan Barry, the creator of the email software ConvertKit. During the interview, one thing stuck out. Barry talked about the time he challenged himself to write 1000 words each day. He tracked his achievement and reached over 600 days before he was struck down with an illness that broke his streak. Not everything he wrote was gold, but his writing had turned into several e-books that he sold for hefty profits.
Perhaps its a bit of synchronicity, but to have the thought in the morning about writing and then seeing this interview in the evening, I was excited to see a concrete path that I could follow.
During the previous week, I had worked diligently to improve several of my websites and had created a few blog posts. Most of them were short – around 200 words or so. They were announcements. I thought, once the basics are covered, what more is there to say?
The reality is that I am out of practice when it comes to writing. At least the writing that is published publicly for everyone to read. For journaling, I tend to write in spurts, but I’ve filled volumes in just the past few months.
I have decided to take the 1000 words a day challenge.
Here are the rules I’ve made for myself:
- It all counts – whether it is a social media post, a blog post, website copy, or even private journaling, all of these contribute to my word count for the day.
- What doesn’t count is basic communications such as text messages, email responses, and social media responses.
- The challenge is daily – both weekdays and weekends.
Day 1 was Tough
I really underestimated what 1000 words would be like. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but doing a plank for 30 seconds doesn’t sound difficult either until you try it.
At 7:30 pm, I was running out of steam. I had published a few social media posts, written some website copy, and jotted down a few sentences in a blog post I’ve been working on. And it all added up to…drum roll please, 352 words.
I was tired, I felt deflated, but I was also determined. I couldn’t fall short on the first day. So, I got out my journal. I started by jotting down my wins for the day. That was pretty easy. April 1st, 2024 turned out to be a monumental day (no joke). It was the 10-year anniversary of launching my website, crateinsider.com, the business that turned me into an entrepreneur.
Also, my personal YouTube channel reached 1000 subscribers yesterday after a final push on Facebook asking my friends to subscribe. I was 2 subscribers away at the beginning of the day.
Recording my wins was only 24 words. So I just started writing. After filling a page, I counted 106 words to a page. The next page was 108 words and 104 on the next. After that, I stopped counting and just guesstimated that each page was about 100 words. That left me with just 3 more pages to write. And I did it. Those pages started out being filled with nonsense, but as I wrote on, it occurred to me that one of the items that has been on my wish list for many months is to create an ebook. Even if I only dedicate 100 words per day to this project, I’ll make a lot more progress than the zero words I’ve written so far.
I ended my journaling passage with my theme for 2024 – “I’m Here For It.”
Day 2 was Easier
Today is Day 2. I decided to run an experiment. I set my Time Cube for 10 minutes and started typing. I wrote a stream of consciousness – whatever popped in my head – and I did it for the full 10 minutes so that I could get a better idea of how many words I typically write in a given period of time. It turned out that I typed about 300 words in that 10 minutes. Knowing that, I can see that typing my 1000 words per day could potentially take less than an hour if done in one sitting.
Helpful Tools
To assist in my journey, I’m employing a couple of tools. One of these is a Habit Tracker App. I will likely write an entire separate post about my mixed feelings about tracking and habits. But, for this project, it seems suitable. I’m very interested in creating the momentum this habit could create. The app I’ve chosen is simply called Habit. I’ve set it up to track my one goal – Write 1000 words.
My second download is a software program so that I can track my word count without literally counting each and every one. I’ve chosen Scrivener. It is software used by authors. As I mentioned above, writing an ebook is on my list, so I may as well have a tool that can help with that project. The way I see it, it is a 2 for 1 deal. Scrivener has a 30 day free trial and then it looks like it is just 50-something dollars to upgrade to the paid version. That is an incredible bargain. I’ll still try it out first and make sure that it works for me before I take the next step. If it turns out to be a great tool, you’ll likely see a blog post or video with a review.
So, how long is 1000 words? You’ve just read 1002 words. Thank you for joining me on my journey.
