45 Days For 45,000 Words

Recently I discovered a technique for forming new habits called “Don’t break the chain!”, and it is incredibly simple to implement. This habit building technique requires nothing more than a calendar and a marker, and of course a personal commitment to form a new habit. Luckily though the chain method helps a person to focus on only the current day instead of being overwhelmed with changing their life all at once.

First you define what the habit is that you want to adopt. It should be something that can be done with the free time that you have within your existing daily routine. Examples would be working out for twenty minutes a day, or practicing the guitar. You then mark a big red X on your calendar after finishing that task everyday and your goal is to not break that chain of Xs. The magic number for forming a new habit seems to be sixty straight days of performing that activity on a daily basis.

Now I’ve been doing this with an assortment of new healthy habits and the results have been great so far. Yes, at first these tasks are difficult but around day thirty I have found that I start to look forward to my new daily routine.

And so I am now starting a new daily habit of writing one thousand words a day for my Fudge project. If all goes well I will have a complete prototype written by mid-February. It is the first step in a much larger process, but if I do not write the prototype I will never make it to step two.

So here is to writing a 45,000 word prototype in 45 days! I will post when I reach milestones here, and maybe I will even share completed sections.

I feel really good about this process. I have a ton of material that I have written, but now I finally see how it is all coming together into a finished product. We will see 45 days from now if I am on the right track.