Morning Pages

Sunday, July 2nd, 2023

I am starting to use Morning Pages with my daughters.

I am still not sure what the total benefits are other than being a brain dump, but that's definitely a start. The thinking is not that clear, but I do get ideas while writing it out.

Most importantly, I hope I can instill a habit and muscle for writing daily with them. It's something that I haven't managed to do in the past, but I grow in my conviction that it's probably up there with meditation and exercise as a powerful life hack.

I think some people have said to just toss the morning pages, because it's just a dump of nothing. I am somewhat inclined to believe that.

But right now, I have been using a journal and then taking a photograph in case I lose it.

My handwriting is not that legible, and I am wondering whether is it worth improving penmanship?

Not sure.

How is it different from my goal of writing something online every day?

That I don't know. I have seen some people build a very successful business writing online everyday on Medium.

But what if what I am thinking is just not that interesting? Which likely is the case.

What if it's not truly useful? My hunch is that daily writing based on Building the Content Matrix would be much better for people.

So here's how I am starting to sketch it all out.

Morning Pages
Just to get junk out of my head, maybe a little time for introspection or capturing thoughts, fears, resentments. Not great for structured thinking and definitely not useful for the general public.

Daily Public Writing
I am still not super clear, but there's a little bit of editing that needs to go on if it is public writing. Part of it is TMI. Part of it is value to the reader.

I sense that daily public writing with some intent to explore things that are curious and insightful could be useful to help me, as the writer, find a voice, get comfortable with living online and playing the online game.

Weekly Newsletter
This feels like it really does need to be based on Building the Content Matrix and I believe the exercise here is about Getting Clear on Your Persona. This alone is a difficult but valuable exercise and taking courses and doing so in a cohort does help. I am convinced here that it isn't a weekly thing...but it does need more planning via the content calendar.

The spur of the moment, spontaneous thing, does feel better suited for the Daily Public Writing and, who knows, from those could come ideas from the Newsletter.

But right now I am not sure leaving it up to chance is entirely right.