First post on @200wordsaday! Day 1 of the #200wad challenge.

Why 200 words a day?

I always wanted to write more regularly, but never did. I like to think by writing - it helps me reflect better about life. I also enjoy putting my thoughts out into the world, and connecting with others through words. Being more of an introvert, connecting with others IRL had always been harder. With writing, I can be more expressive and be myself.

But there’s always excuses. Too tired. Too late. Not enough time. Busy with work. Too much work to login to blog, write, find images, format text, add links, etc etc. It’s not good/perfect enough.

I really want to change this. 

Thing is, I’m always seeing writing as this massive endeavour. What if I could lower the logistics and expectations of it? No need to make it snazzy with images, minimal to no links, just 200 words, on any topic I want, with no standards to benchmark it against?

If behavioural change is a combination of motivation, ability and prompts (B=MAP), what can I do to increase motivation (public commitment?), ability (making things easier, having right tools?) and prompts (daily reminder alerts?)?

If there’s one thing I learned the most from my #1mvp1month challenge (where I create one minimum viable product every month…kind of like #12startupsin12months), is that I hate breaking promises, especially ones I made publicly. I always build my products using a mashup of other products/tools, so that makes things easier. Can @200wordsaday be that tool to help make writing easier? I love how the minimal interface reduces distraction and focuses on the words itself. Not having expectations to have to write on my laptop helps too. That way I can write anywhere, on the go, on my mobile. Having a ready list of topics that I always wanted to write more about helps in maintaining daily momentum too. For prompts, I can create my own daily reminders on my calendar. Reading others’ tweets about #200wad on Twitter help as reminders too.

And before I know it, I’m already past 300 words at this point. Not so hard right?

More tomorrow - what I really love to write more about.