100 words 001

I enjoyed listening to a podcast episode with Jeremy Keith and Jeffrey Zeldman about the importance of writing for yourself. That led me to Jeremy’s 100 words for 100 days, a challenge to post (exactly) 100 words each day for 100 days.

I decided to take up that challenge.

I also decided to focus more on writing for myself. It’s not that I focus on making my posts interesting to others, but I have fallen out of the habit of posting the seemingly insignificant minutiae. Those add up to “life,” though, and I want to look back on them someday.

In a recent episode of the unfinished business podcast, Andy Clarke is joined by Jeffrey Zeldman and Jeremy Keith to talk about writing on the web. Jeremy explains his 100 words project and stresses the importance of writing for yourself on your own website. They also touch briefly on the subject of learning and how we sometimes feel we stagnate in learning new things.

This very inspiring conversation got me thinking. To be honest, I’ve been guilty of holding back and self-censorship when it came to writing, although I’ve always wanted to write more. And the reasons are always the same: either I thought the subject I was going to write about wasn’t interesting enough, or I assumed someone else had already written about it.

But when it comes to learning, I don’t really have the feeling of stagnation. Although I’ve been working in web design and development for about 8 years now, I’m picking up new things every day – not to mention the stuff I’m learning outside of work.

I think it really depends on what we define as learning. If we’re talking about picking up a new skill then sure, we don’t learn new things everyday, simply because it usually takes more than one day to do something completely new with confidence. But for me, learning is much more than familiarizing myself with a new technique. In it’s essence, I see learning as a gaining of knowledge. I think people are constantly learning new things, however small they may be, but they’re not really aware of it anymore.

To overcome one issue and appreciate the other, I decided to write about the things I learn everyday. This may be something web design or development related or something completely different. The point is, to recognise that learning happens every day and to be conscious of it.

And that’s what I learnt today.

101 Words – 001: This is the first of a series of 101 posts each consisting of precisely 101 words. rdgr.me/u/1ra0qxa

This is the first of a series of 101 posts each consisting of precisely 101 words. Inspired by Michael Beirut’s 100 Day Project and spin-offs such as Elle Luna’s collaboration with The Great Discontent, I’ve been toying with the idea of posting something on a daily basis for a while. Jeremy Keith’s 100 x 100 words got me interested in 100 words as a length for the texts. Taking about 30 seconds to read and 15 minutes to write, it’s a little easier to manage than a full 200 word Thomas Basbøll paragraph – perfect for an exercise such as this.

@pwcc The concept scares me…. a lot. I might stick with 5 days.

@developerjack Same, although it tempts me. I like the parameter, it’s more defined than blog every day. 5 days is a good start, good luck.

@adactio Sounds like a job for machines. 😉