Project Summary: Writing a Post Every Day

In this post, I discuss a project in which I wrote a post every day. Then, I discuss writing daily but not posting daily. After that, I share the current setup for my “second brain.” Finally, I list every post I wrote while posting daily so you can easily navigate the output from this project.

Post Every Day

From mid-April to mid-May 2020, I wrote a post every day documenting my media consumption and what I learned from it. I did this because I felt stressed from information overload, wanted to be more mindful of my consumption, and wanted to improve my ability to learn from those things I chose to consume.

Going forward, I will not be writing a post every day in the Daily Learning category. Instead, I want to take time to build my “second brain,” then sort through the posts I wrote and add them as entries to the database. I’ll continue documenting my media consumption, but I will focus on developing this database of ideas instead of writing posts. For the time being, I will keep this database private.

My biggest issue with writing a post every day about my media consumption is that a post should focus on one idea for optimal SEO and readability. My media consumption rarely focuses on just one idea, though. Therefore, I end up writing posts that talk about several disparate topics. To solve this issue, I want to develop my database of ideas, instead.

When I document entries for my second brain, I can make multiple entries for a day’s consumption. Furthermore, I can categorize and sub-categorize entries. This makes it easy for me to quickly find and return to ideas I’ve written about in the past.

Write Daily, but Don’t Post Daily

On 4 May 2020, I discussed a post by Derek Sivers on his own daily posting experiment. In that post, he concludes to “write daily, but don’t post daily.” I think a daily writing habit is a good habit to form. I’m, however, not talking about journaling about my feelings or goals every day (though that can be helpful in its own way). Instead, I’m talking about writing to synthesize ideas and develop new ones, to keep track of what you’re learning and adapt that knowledge into a format that can help others, and to build first drafts of future content.

While writing a post every day, I decided to sit down and write each morning after exercising and before freelancing. I enjoyed this habit stack and I may come back to it in the future. For the time being, though, I think I may not write every day as I focus on my next project. While I say this, I think it may be important for me to write daily during this next project because I expect to consume a large volume of content every day. Writing daily will help me learn, keep track of, and synthesize this content. Therefore, I am currently unsure if I will continue writing daily or not. No matter what I decide, I want to continue developing my second brain as a long-term project.

Second Brain

This database can be categorized for easy access to ideas. For example,

I may file the section on carb cycling from my 19 April 2020 post under the category “Health & Wellness” with the subcategory “Nutrition.”
I may file the section on running from my 6 May 2020 post under “Health & Wellness” → “Exercise.”
My notes on a specifically poignant section of Nietzsche’s writing may be filed under “Philosophy” → “Existentialism.”
I may file notes on Doris Kearn Goodwin’s Team of Rivals under “History” → “Political” and “United States” and “Biographical.”

Over time, I’ll tinker with the categories and subcategories I use. At the moment, I allow one category and several subcategories for an entry. Here’s a sample image of what my database currently looks like. If you’re curious, I use Notion.

Figure 1: Second Brain Database

Patrick's second brain database, where he'll store ideas from when he wrote a post every day.

Daily Learning Posts

Finally, here’s a list of every post I wrote during this project. Posts commonly talk about several ideas, but I included the primary topic for each post.

Resources

Praxis participants complete a 30-day writing challenge while in the program. This challenge was one of the initial impetus for wanting to complete this project.
Forte Labs on building a second brain. There are many other resources on building a second brain, but this one inspired me to actually do it. Note that it’s a pitch for a course. I didn’t complete the course, I just used the overview for inspiration.
Notion is a wonderful all-in-one piece of software. I made my second brain in Notion and I use Notion for a million other things.
James Clear’s Atomic Habits has been integral for every project I’ve done for this site. If you’re curious about habits, then check it out.