Ideas
6 min read
Notes on writing every morning for 500 days
Three hundred words before breakfast, every day, for a year and a half. Most of it was bad. That was the point.
Nell Ashby
Filed under
Ideas
Longer thinking on habits, tools and attention.
On day one I wrote 300 words about the weather. On day 500 I wrote 300 words about the weather again, and they were much better.
The habit only held because the bar was low. Three hundred words, no editing, no rereading until the end of the month.
Around day 120 the pages started to talk to each other. An idea from a Tuesday turned up again three weeks later, sharper. Eleven Morrow essays began that way.
If you want to try it, pick a number small enough to be embarrassing. The streak matters more than the words.
Written by
Nell Ashby
Nell started Morrow in 2021 as a weekly letter to forty friends. She edits every piece and writes about work and routine.
