

Tell HN: Writing helps - hardik

I have been under constant pressure about a few things and that had me down from a few months, affecting my productivity, mood, appetite and lots more. Today, I just opened the notepad and started typing away what I felt. The idea to do so seemed a little funny at first as my thoughts were very clear in my mind and it was my helplessness to do anything that had got me down, but trust me, it helped tremendously. After so many days, I did some meaningful work, of course nothing compared to my peak days but it did break the "cant-do-anything" streak. I have also been feeling better overall after writing.
Just thought would share this with you all. Happy holidays.
======
ljlolel
Guaranteed Stress Reliever for Busy People.

Write. Write down exactly what you are thinking. It will probably be hard at
first, especially if you are not used to blogging, creating copy, or writing
essays. That's okay: start by just taking a pen and putting words down on
paper. Do not worry about grammar or structure. Switch from point to point as
they come to you. The purpose is to get each idea down on paper. Structure can
come later: read it again and rewrite it.

I have discovered, and I want to prove this but I do not yet know how, that
when a person writes down an idea, the mind no longer stresses itself to
remember that idea. This makes sense: why waste time and space indexing new
information if it can just be looked up? Instead, your mind just remembers
where to look.

Moreover, because they are out of your mind, these ideas will not rise to your
conscious thoughts every few minutes to worry you. That project you have due
next Monday won't stress you out every hour. Write it down. Write down
everything you worry about that project. I might not finish in time. The
package might never show up. Ken is so unreliable. Tim hasn't answered my
email yet, should I email him? I haven't written the first page yet, but I
have to write 20. Maybe I can write an outline first. Can I outsource this
part?

Write it down, wr....

[http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/guaranteed-stress-
reliever-f...](http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/guaranteed-stress-reliever-for-
busy-people)

~~~
jeeringmole
The idea that writing an idea down reduces stress is one of the cornerstones
of Dave Allen's Getting Things Done. He calls the unwritten items that nag at
you "open loops". One important follow-on idea that that the ideas must be
written down in a "trusted system": if you aren't absolutely confident that
you will be able to find it when you go looking (or, better, that it will be
brought to your attention when needed whether or not you remember to look at
that moment), you won't stop worrying.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done>

------
JonathanFields
There's a legendary book for artists called The Artist's Way about getting
back your creative mojo and one of the first things the author talks about is
something called your daily pages.

<http://amzn.to/ieS49z>

She suggests starting every day writing 3 pages, by hand, totally freestyle
stream of consciousness to help get stuff out of your head and get you back
into the practice of daily creation. It's not about what you write, you
probably will never revisit it, it's just about the impact it has on your
bigger creative flow.

~~~
mashmac2
<http://750words.com>

I just found this last week... it's really helped me get some writing done,
which is usually something I dread doing. You sign in and write. It saves your
text and keeps record of how much you've written each day.

~~~
alexophile
Seconded. 750words also has some moderately compelling game-like mechanics as
well as some analytics like word clouds and timing statistics.

I had a really good streak going for a while, but a new job with an hour+
commute every morning killed it and I never went back.

------
topherjaynes
Read any writer's "On writing" book and they all talk about a mandatory amount
of words they have to write on a daily basis. I just finished Jack London's
and he had to write a 1,000 (polished)words a day. He struggled with it, but
strangely, his creativity came from his routine.

I'd recommend Stephen King's "On Writing", Ray Bradbury "Zen and the Art of
Writing", and "Ernest Hemingway on Writing". All have great insights into the
joy and struggles of writing, but each on makes you want to be a great writer.

Best of luck keeping it up!

------
rabc
I went through something like that some months ago. Then I discovered OhLife (
<http://ohlife.com/> ).

That's was the best I did, every night I write my feelings and forget then. It
makes me feel better and less heavy.

~~~
klbarry
Wow - this thing looks great. I wonder how they make profit, though, there's
no ads and no paid versions?

~~~
adricv
The potential for pharma spam is HUGE.

1\. Detect keywords like Depression, Sad, Lonely

2\. Serve anti-depressant ads

3\. No ??? Just profit.

------
joshrule
I've had a similar surge in clarity. I spend at least an hour each day
writing. But, I recently started an experiment to spend another 15 minutes
each day just thinking. I have pen and paper, but the goal isn't to write.
It's to think. The pen and paper just capture a few notes. For more details,
see [http://wayofthescholar.com/trial-2-day-1-reflecting-
for-15-m...](http://wayofthescholar.com/trial-2-day-1-reflecting-
for-15-minutes/) (I'll have an update coming out tomorrow).

The results have been great so far, and those 15 minutes are becoming the most
productive part of my entire day. It seems like this time basically assigns
problems to my brain, which it works on unconsciously while I'm walking home
from the lab.

Because writing is thinking, writing is great. I wonder, though, are there
other ways to think which are just as potent, or even more so?

------
MrFlibble
This is great advice & a wonderful way to "brain dump" those nagging thoughts
out of your head.

Another writing tip: When you are really upset about something and want to rip
someone a new one, write them an email but don't send it. Write what you want
to say, get it out of your system, the thing is say whatever you want. Then
walk away for 24 hours. If you find upon returning to the email the next day
that you still want to say those things, fire away, but most times you'll have
cooled down by then & be able to re-write a much better and less "venting"
email. This has helped keep me from burning many bridges in moments of extreme
frustration.

------
wallflower
I love writing. I love creative expression, writing down observations,
focusing thoughts around an intent or story. Writing code just happens to be a
form of writing that I can do for a living. You start with a draft or
something already started and you shape it into something that people like to
use. I love writing.

Be careful with a diary though. Especially if you tend to be self-critical.
Your own worst critic. I had one for a few years in a low, workaholic phase of
my life and I was depressed rereading it in moments. So many negative
thoughts. Ouch. I prefer now to write positive stories. Highlight the
positive, accept the negative.

------
essayist
I find that this helps tremendously when I'm stuck in a decision. I open
TextWrangler on my MacBook, and write about the various options, why I don't
like them, and, if I'm really good, what the cost of not making a decision is,
and what the simplest solution that could possibly work is.

[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWo...](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWork)

I often get stuck when I want to combine the best aspects of various possible
solutions, but can't. The writing lays it out there and helps me get over my
perfectionism.

------
kirinkalia
I was writing about 300 words nearly every morning starting in May but fell
off the wagon this fall. Thanks for kicking my butt into action this morning.

Why wait for the New Year to resolve to write every day? Things that clear
your mind and make you feel better shouldn't get pushed aside because of other
life things (work, errands, whatever). That's been my problem, I admit.

And the best part of daily writing is you don't need to be a "Writer" to do
it.

------
RyanMcGreal
I've experienced one major, extended depression in my life, about a decade
ago. My daily outpouring of despair into a printed journal came to feel like a
life line. By itself it wasn't enough to get me out, but it was enough to keep
my head above water while I was going through it.

------
dy
Check out this todo-list called workflowy.com. I think it adds two things to
the todo-list genre:

\- Allows infinite depth. This is possible in Word but not many other apps,
however, I find my task-list to require atleast 4-5 levels of depth to model
correctly \- Allows instant focus. I have a todo-list open right now that has
23 bullet items, it's nested 5 levels deep among a whole bunch of other items.

Writing is great (even though I do it very rarely) but a todo list (to me) is
the absolute simplest way to model things that are "stuck" in my mind and
preventing other top of the mind shower thinking.

------
rianjs
Congratulations, you've re-discovered blogging. ;P

In all seriousness, though, writing does help. The productivity block you're
talking about was the reason I started blogging way back in the day. I don't
write much personal stuff anymore because I don't need to, and when I do, it's
an email to one or two people and that's it. As chrisaycock noted, sometimes
all you need to do is observe your thoughts and feelings, and then they get
out of your way, leaving you feeling less burdened.

~~~
theBobMcCormick
Journaling existed a _long_ time before blogging. And for me at least, the old
fashioned journaling, where you just write stream of consciousness stuff that
you know will never be seen by anyone else, is a lot more liberating than
blogging. Not only because you know that nobody else is going to ever see it,
but also because of the writing technique usually recommended (just keep
writing, don't edit, don't re-read, don't critique,etc).

I always found that blogging was just one more thing for my to procrastinate
and end up _not_ doing. :-(

------
Ixiaus
Stream of consciousness helps you "get it out" where you can objectify it much
easier and treat it like an external item. So, it's good that you are feeling
better, but you will (at some point) want to pivot those subjects so you
actually feel better _about them_. Otherwise they will just be skeletons in
the closet.

Get it out, acknowledge you don't feel good, objectify the issue, then do your
best to find the good aspects in those issues so they are no longer weights.

------
dmazin
I have also had the feeling recently that keeping a diary helps me accomplish
the difficult (not playing video games) as well as deal with moods and life
issues. It is nice to see this, as it is evidence that this effect may be
valid.

------
OmarTv
write simple or complex depending in your mood, sometimes you'll find
wonderful things in those words and letter that you have created and will heal
some of your wounds or worries take it as a magnificent rest who can take you
anywhere in the world or beyond it

------
J3L2404
One thing that has always stopped me form writing a journal was the glaring
fact that I was never going to get around to reading older entries, and
therefore why was I keeping them around to be stumbled upon. I agree that
venting your thoughts is generally helpful but my original point was recently
validated when a family member was hospitalized and requested that their
journals be destroyed immediately. I did so without peaking, but if I were to
keep a journal I would have one rule: Burn after writing.

~~~
riledhel
The exact opposite is also valid. Notable examples start with Anne Frank's
diary right?

~~~
hardik
Agree, I would actually want to revisit the experiences of the past, human
memory is very tricky and it helps to have things written out to revisit how
you felt about something.

