Writers write. Whether they’re writing books, poems, sales and marketing copy, or even jokes… writers write.
Jerry Seinfeld famously wrote a joke every day when he was starting out as a comedian. He kept himself on track with this habit by putting an X on the calendar after completing his writing for the day, creating a “chain” of X’s.
This was a strong visual motivator. Because even one day without the X… one day without writing… would break the chain of X’s on the calendar.
His mantra for maintaining this productivity habit became “Don’t Break the Chain.”
Now, Seinfeld didn’t make himself write an entire monologue each day. Sometimes it wasn’t even a fully complete joke. But, it was always something.
And he wrote that something every single day.
A Daily Writing Practice Changes Your Brain
Dr. Don Greene, a peak performance psychologist, says “practice is the repetition of an action with the goal of improvement, and it helps us perform with more ease, speed, and confidence.”
Science shows that the daily practice of anything — whether it’s playing the piano, playing chess, hitting a baseball, or writing — improves your ability to do that thing.
It changes your brain.
Practice — the repetition of an activity — builds up more of the protective myelin that surrounds your neural pathways, making your neurons transmit signals faster and more efficiently.
So, the more you practice writing on a daily basis, the easier it becomes and the faster you become at doing it.
What to Write
Sometimes your daily writing will be work you do for a client. But, what about the days when you don’t have a client project on your schedule?
You don’t want those days to break the chain… or the myelin surrounding your nerves.
So, to get you started with a daily practice, here are 31 writing prompts for those days when you can’t think of anything to write:
- Write a blog post… for your own blog or as practice for your ideal client.
- Write a social media post about that blog post.
- Write an email.
- Write a greeting card.
- Write a newsletter article.
- Write an idea.
- Write something you’re grateful for.
- Write a memory.
- Write your goals.
- Write a poem.
- Write song lyrics.
- Write about the view out your window.
- Write about your neighbor.
- Write about your pet.
- Write how to do something.
- Write how to get somewhere.
- Write a toast.
- Write a thank you note.
- Write a list.
- Write about your family.
- Write about money.
- Write about your first job.
- Write about what made you smile yesterday.
- Write something you learned yesterday.
- Write about the last time you laughed.
- Write about breakfast.
- Write about a holiday.
- Write about a smell.
- Write about a taste.
- Write about a place.
- Write about writing.
How Is More Important Than What You Write
Although I’ve set you up for daily practice with these 31 writing prompts, what you write isn’t all that important. Neither is quantity. So, don’t worry overly much about hitting a certain word count.
How you write, on the other hand, is important. Quality counts. You’re not doing this daily writing practice and putting this writing prompts to work to strengthen the muscles in your fingers; you’re doing it to exercise your brain.
So, you can’t just type hundreds of pages of “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” That won’t improve your writing ability.
Neither will simply copying other people’s writing. Writing out by hand examples of good copywriting is a valuable practice to help you learn the structure and flow of that piece of copy.
But, it doesn’t replace the practice of doing your own original writing. Writing where you have to choose the words to best express the ideas you’re trying to communicate. And where you have to think of the sentence structure.
Remember, this daily writing practice is about making you an even better writer. So approach it with that intention.
Ideally, you’ll do your daily writing practice in the same place every day… the same place where you do your writing for clients (or where you plan to do your writing for clients, if you don’t have clients yet).
Sit down and write like you’re getting paid to do it. Focus on the task at hand and don’t let yourself become distracted.
Later, when you ARE doing a paid writing project, the process will feel familiar. And, you’ll be able to get into the flow that much faster.
Just Do It
More than what or where or even to some degree how you write, the very act of doing the writing… the daily practice… is what’s important.
This is true for both beginning and experienced writers. Every writer can benefit from a daily writing practice.
Because, when you start writing every day, you become the kind of person who writes every day.
You become a Writer with a capital W.
It changes how you think about yourself. It changes your confidence in your ability. It sets you up for success.
So, stop thinking about it, and just do it.
Do it every day.
Don’t break the chain.
