Coming up with ideas & staying consistent

Today's talk with Chris Bongers primarily covered two things: creativity and consistency. He provided many great examples and ideas during his talk and mentioned he will be posting on the topic tomorrow, September 16. Make sure to go check his article out. I am going to be writing about my takeaways from the presentation and add personal thoughts and experiences.

Consistency

Consistency can be described as effort or performance that does not vary over time. Being consistent with anything does not have to mean doing it for hours every day, but, having a regular schedule can help. Being consistent as a writer can be good for several reasons, the first being it makes for a good habit. When trying to build an audience as a writer, it is important to note that readers enjoy the new content and knowing when that new content is coming. Setting a schedule can help in ways beyond being consistent, like fulfilling the audiences' expectations and reducing personal stress. Some tips Chris provided to help stay consistent are:

• Setting realistic timeframes
• Motivate your effort
• Set realistic goals
• Celebrating every win
• Inspiring yourself
• Use tools

The ones that stick out the most to me are: setting realistic timeframes, celebrating every win, and using the available tools.

Setting realistic timeframes

Setting realistic timeframes for our writing sessions' length and frequency of posting is a good way to stay consistent. Some people may be able to write non-stop for hours on end while others may not. Giving ourselves a schedule to work off of can help us as writers. I have found myself getting so immersed in coding projects that I burn myself out. Coming back from burnout can be tough, so, I try to set aside time for myself to code. One to two hours or so each day prevents burnout from happening. Though it does take some effort to step away from a problem I cannot take my mind off of, I remind myself that I do this to stay consistent. This also keeps me on track with my goal of coding a little every day. As I continue to dive deeper into technical writing, I plan to post weekly about whatever is going on during my coding journey. I plan on using tooling, which I will talk about later, to keep me on track.

Celebrating every win

Something I feel goes hand in hand with burnout is a lack of motivation. Recognizing our successes can help us stay motivated and positive. It is easy to lose sight of our overall progress if we do not meet a goal or our expectations are not met, but, we should celebrate how far we have come. I believe we should approach our larger goals similarly to a topic in technical writing, by cutting it down into smaller more digestible bits. Incremental improvements and small achievements are worth recognizing and celebrating; they ultimately lead to the completion of our overall goals. Celebrating these minor wins will help keep us motivated, maintain a positive mindset and build greater confidence as we grow.

Using tools

The world of technology is vast and can be a lot to handle at times. Luckily, the tech community is a crafty bunch and they have made many tools to improve our quality of life. For Hashnode, I plan on using the draft feature to quickly expand on ideas and create a backlog of articles before they are posted. The backlog will not have to consist of all complete articles but there will be enough ideas and half-done projects to keep me stress-free as I try to maintain consistency. I also use the notepad app on my phone and Google frequently for jotting down ideas and researching them later. The tools we use do not have to be used solely for function, we can use them for creativity as well.

Creativity and ideas

Technical writing has a creative nature to it and we should do what we can to harbour it. People can be inherently creative but I feel it can also be practiced. We can draw inspiration in what we are learning about, what we are struggling with or what we have overcome. Do not be afraid to check for inspiration in places like Twitter, Discord, Hashnode, or Youtube. Even if someone else has already published an article on the same subject, we can hopefully provide a fresh perspective to it. We could even write for ourselves in the future and just reorganize things in a way that make sense for us. The trick is to try and keep the juices flowing once they start. As I mentioned before, I have recently started to keep a list of questions I want to Google and topics I want to learn about on my phone so that I can use them as topics for my articles and series. Check back later to see what these topics will be.

Not everyone is the same and you will have to try and find what works for you. Just remember to do what is manageable for you to keep consistent and do not be afraid to try something new and take risks.

Happy Writing! 👨‍💻