Tag Archives: daily-ink

Missed a day

I think I missed my first day of blogging since I started writing daily in early 2019. I’m making up for it by posting twice today. It was a pretty good streak and I’m basically just going to continue on with no intention to let this minor slip change my commitment.

First thing yesterday morning I went to the hospital to visit my dad, came back to my parent’s house at about 5pm with my back/shoulder nerve pain at a high level. I self medicated and then my buddy picked me up to go out for dinner where I had a couple Guinnesses to add to my self-medicating. When I got home I fell asleep on the couch and slept through the night fully clothed from the day.

I’m not sure I could have written anything if I tried at the end of the day. Not blogging first thing in the morning for more than a weekend has made it a bit easier to forget, and I’ve written a few posts just before midnight this past week.

Still, to respect the commitment, I’ll blog again later today… my way of keeping the streak alive. But missing yesterday makes me ask myself, should I keep doing this? Do I need to blog every… single… day? The answer that comes to mind is ‘Yes’. I still find joy in being forced to to think and be creative daily. Like my blog byline says,

“Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.”

It’s not about the streak, it’s about daily practice, and committing to a task. And so… onwards with the blogging. Apologies to those that receive these via email for the double hit to your inbox in a single day.

Every single day

Some days it’s really hard to start writing. Today I stared at a blank page long enough that I realized I’d get nowhere stating longer, and so I did my meditation first. Then I thought, ‘I’m the only one that cares about my streak of writing every day, so what if I skip a day?’ And that was the right question to ask myself.

“So what if I skip a day?”

Well, it’s not just about breaking this streak, it’s the permission I give myself to be a streak breaker. It’s the identity that I’ve created that gets broken, not just the pattern. I’m a daily writer, I commit to writing, to putting something creative out into the world. Some days it won’t be great. Some days it will feel like a chore. Some days I’ll stare at a blank page for too long. But every day I’ll write.

“So what if I skip a day?”

If I do it intentionally, I’m opening a door to not being a daily writer. I’m giving myself permission to make exceptions every time it feels tough. Some days you just have to show up. It doesn’t matter if it’s going to the gym, dragging yourself to work on a day when you just want to stay under the covers, heading to a practice you don’t want to go to, or writing every day.

The blank page can be daunting, but it’s not scary, it’s just hard to look at. It’s not a beast, it’s a gremlin. And it’s not blank if you get one sentence down with a commitment not to erase that sentence until you are ready to replace it.

Daily writing is an identity based habit not a calendar based habit. I am a writer, and I can only say that if I’m writing. I live an active lifestyle, and I can only say that if I’m consistently staying active. It’s not about the act as much as it is about the identity. This is who I am. I show up, I get it done, and I know that I’ll do the same tomorrow. Skip a day? That’s a choice somebody else gets to make, not me.

Good head space

After writing History Repeats yesterday I’ve had a couple people ask if I’m feeling ok, or in a good head space? Reading it again today I can see how that post can be interpreted as gloomy and dark. But that was just a mood after watching Fidler on the Roof and hearing the dedication afterwards to the people of Ukraine. It isn’t an overarching mental state.

But being asked makes me realize that by sharing a daily blog, I probably give readers a sense of my overall head space by the tone and temperament of the things I share… and writing a post about how we are no more civilized than an ant colony can certainly come off as a gloomy disposition.

Well in this case it’s not. I’m in a good space. I’m getting over a nasty cold, and am slowly but incrementally better each day. As a result I’m exercising regularly again (something I couldn’t do without a coughing fit two and three weeks ago). And I’ve had some good quality time with my wife and friends that I haven’t had when I couldn’t talk without coughing.

So, yes, yesterday’s post was gloomy, but it was a momentary mood, and not a state-of-the-nation address forecasting dark and gloomy days ahead. It was a reaction to an experience, and even though it was kind of dark, the experience of seeing Fiddler on the Roof performed live, with friends, was wonderful.

Overall head space right now: pretty good! 😁👍

Repeat performance

I just spent 25 minutes writing a post that I titled ‘Student Ambassadors’, then realized it seemed familiar. I went to my blog and did a search for the term ‘ambassador’ and found ‘Student led tours‘ which I wrote about 5-6 weeks ago. The approach was different but the examples and key message was identical.

If I’d written it 2 years ago I probably would have re-shared the idea, but the last post was too soon and so now I write about the similarity of the posts rather than writing the post itself. I know I’ve also shared something similar to this before but sometimes writing daily is really hard. Coming up with novel ideas to write about is challenging. Not repeating some of those ideas is even more challenging.

Do you ever realize that you have specific ‘go to’ stories that you share? Certain memories that come up again and again, that you share with equal enthusiasm every time you share them? We have a model of who we are and we have stories that represent that model for us. We don’t try to be novel all the time, we are consistent, and we tell the same stories consistently.

So, I’ll repeat myself sometimes. Like today, if I recognize that I’m doing so, I will pivot and pick a new topic, or I’ll try to give a new idea on top of an old one… but sometimes I will not realize I’ve shared something before, and in those cases I apologize for the repeat performance.

Sneaking it in

It’s 11pm and I just realized that I haven’t written my Daily Ink yet. I blame the holidays. I sat to write this and my wife asked if we could go for a walk. So I gladly went for a walk with her and then I forgot! I don’t think that I’ve missed a day since I started writing daily in July 2019, but maybe there was a day like this that I just don’t remember? I’ll probably never know because I’m not going to count, and I have (occasional) posts on here dating back to 2009, so total posts won’t help me, I’d have to count one-by-one or month-by-month.

But my point here is that I can’t let a day slip by when I am aware and still have time to write. I don’t have to write every day, I want to write every day! I want to make the commitment and I want to follow through. How upset will I be if I do miss a day? Not terribly… I’ll just write the next day and keep going. On the other hand, thinking ‘it’s too late’, when there is still time in the day is a cop-out.

All that said, some days are really tough. I sit with a blank page and nothing comes to mind. I start a post, then something sounds/seems familiar, so I do a search and see that I’ve already written something similar. Or I start something and just don’t like it. Days like these, I remind myself that it’s hard to be truly original. I remind myself that not everything I write will be good, much less great. But I will write, and I will publish, and I’ll do it daily. My blog description says it all:

Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.

Shifting Paradigms

TLDR: I’m not publishing any more posts on my Pair-a-Dimes blog (where this post is being cross-posted)… I’d be honoured if my Pair-a-Dimes subscribers, (and/or you), subscribed here on Daily Ink. To do so, fill in your email on the subscription form on the right-side column on your computer, or under the comment box on your mobile device.

Well, if it isn’t obvious yet, I will make it clear now. After whimsically naming my blog ‘Pair-a-Dimes for Your Thoughts‘ on a blog service called Elgg, and publishing my first post on March 29th, 2006 (reposted on DavidTruss.com on March 26th, 2008), it is now evident to me that I’ve fully transitioned to my Daily-Ink blog. My last post on Pair-a-Dimes (Choice time for teacher Pro-D) before this one was over a year ago. The one before that (How do we get to ‘YES’?) was written almost two years ago. Meanwhile, on my Daily-Ink I’ve posted every day since July 6th, 2019 (It’s time…). That’s 3 days short of 3 years, or 1,093 daily blog posts.

To put that number in perspective, I had my Pair-a-Dimes blog for 16 years and I only blogged 356 times… less than what I did in my first year blogging daily. That said, Pair-a-Dimes was much longer in format, and much more focussed on education. And although I still write about education and learning on Daily-Ink, I will miss the educational focus of Pair-a-Dimes with the tagline, “Reflections on Education, Technology and Learning“. But committing to blogging daily, and adding more to another blog is too much for me… especially as I think about reviving my podcasts this summer, after an almost 2 year hiatus.

I absolutely loved the community I built around Pair-a-Dimes. This blog is the reason I got to present both for Alan November, and with his team. This blog got me connected to Connected Principals, a now defunct site where principals shared their learning (these are the posts I also shared there). This blog became a learning space for me.


This blog is where I learned to do html, it’s where I learned about wikis, it’s what inspired me to blog with students. It helped me become a better educator and a more reflective leader.

I may come back here to post again, but it’s unlikely. However, because I host both blogs on DavidTruss.com, this blog will stay up for as long as I choose to keep blogging or keep my personal website, so it’s not going anywhere… it’s also not going to be updated.

I realize that I have a significant number of email subscribers to Pair-a-Dimes who might enjoy getting 1-3 minute daily reads via email. If that’s you, I’m truly honoured. On your computer you’ll find the subscribe button on the right hand side column, near the top of this page. If you are on mobile, scroll down below the comment section to find the subscribe button. I’m going to try to transfer over the WordPress subscribers, (whom I don’t have an email address for), but I won’t send an email to the 450 people still subscribed to Pair-a-Dimes on Feedburner after all these years. Instead, I’ll post this and hopefully anyone reading via email will subscribe to Daily-Ink. Whether you choose to transfer or not, I want to thank you as a reader of my Pair-a-Dimes. Whether you read posts dating back to 2006, or if you found one post that made you subscribe, you helped inspire me to keep writing. Thank you for being one of over 370,000 Pair-a-Dimes visitors since I moved to DavidTruss.com, I’m honoured that you joined me, that you took the time to read, comment, inspire me, and contribute to my learning.

The blogging adventures continue here on my Daily-Ink.

Lost for words

The past few days I’ve been really stuck on my daily ink. The ideas are not flowing, and when they do come they feel more like essays than short daily writes. But then I’ve wasted too long staring at the blank page to have time to write long, drawn out ideas. So first my writing feels rushed, and then my whole morning routine does too.

This exercise of writing daily has been very positive for me. It has helped me feel creative. It’s not just an outlet for my writing it’s a drive to produce, to create something every single day.

Every. Single. Day.

Well recently I have felt like I don’t have a lot to share. I feel like the things I want to share infringe on the lives of people close to me that may not want their story shared publicly. And most of all I question myself, wondering why anyone would bother reading my daily dribble?

I remember a while back some people were sharing a daily photo. I love photography and tried a couple times to do ‘A Photo a Day’, but my love for photography made me stop both times within a couple weeks. I would look at these forced photos that I had taken and think to myself, ‘That’s a photo I had to take, not one I wanted to take.’ Then I’d quit.

I feel that way about writing right now… but I don’t want to quit. I don’t want a period of not feeling creative to undermine a habit I’ve built for almost 3 years now. What I’m fighting isn’t just writer’s block, it’s self doubt that I’d have anything else to share after all this time. Mental menopause preventing me from creating any fruitful work.

I’ll push through. I’ll accept that what I’m producing now will not be my best work. I’ll tell myself that the muse will come back. But for now it’s more of a chore than an expression of my passion for writing. I said earlier that I struggle with sharing stories of others that aren’t mine to share, well the story I can tell is my own. And for now, that story is how I’m struggling to write daily. The story to tell is that I’ll muscle through, and while it’s not easy, it’s not a time to give up either.

Healthy living goals reflection 2021

It’s that time of year again when I look back at my healthy living goals sticker chart, and also plan for next year.

This was the post at the end of 2020. And this was for 2019, the year I started this.

2021 in review:

Workouts: 287days or 78.6%

Writing: Daily blog 100%

Meditation: 346 days or 94.8%

Archery: 129 days or 35.3% (Goal was 100 days so actually 129%.)

This was an awesome year for fitness. I am about 6-8 pounds heavier, with a fair bit of increase in size in my upper body and small but noticeable increases in my quads. I feel fit and strong, and I think I only had a couple minor slow downs from back pain, with minimal recovery time. I still need to stretch more, and I still rely a bit too much on deep massage therapy to keep the pain away, but I know that slow, careful strength progress, and more time using my standing desk at work, has significantly reduced the amount of regular pain I’ve had to deal with in my lower back.

Last year I did one more workout in the year… but it was a leap year so I’m going to call it even. I hope to maintain this next year too. Working out slightly more than 3 out of every 4 days for a full year is an excellent goal.

My daily blog has been going strong since July 2019… and while I could probably stop tracking this, I want to keep it as a goal for next year. The chart is a good motivator, and there is nothing wrong with having one of my goals be something that I commit to every single day.

Meditation: I missed 13 days from January to November, and 6 more in December. It has not been a good month for meditation. My goal this year was supposed to be tracking days when I meditate more than once to increase my time. I did this 6 times in January and didn’t continue. It did not become a habit. This year I want to increase the total time by going longer than 10 minutes on weekends, and doing more self-guided meditations mid week, so that mini lessons on the Calm App are not part of my meditation time. This is a more realistic way to take my daily meditation to the next level.

Archery was a new goal this year and I hoped to shoot a total of 100 days. I’m thrilled that I hit 129 days, and my goal next year will be 120.

So, no new goals next year, just a couple adjustments on my current goals. I do plan to write more, but I’m going to calendar that, rather than chart it. So 2022 will be about keeping the good habits going… if you have a few goals you’d like to track, buy yourself a year long calendar and make it happen! (Here are my tips.)

May your 2022 be amazing!

Milestone

I just checked, this will be the 999th post on this blog. But I had almost 100 posts before I started writing daily, 901 days ago, on July 6th, 2019. So I still have 99 more posts after this one to hit 1,000 Daily-Inks that are actually daily. Still, I feel like I’ve hit a milestone.

The title of this blog came from Stephen Down’s OLDaily, and a former student’s (now defunct) blog, Wandering Ink. Originally, I was writing in a journal and posting a photograph of my writing. It was a novel, but dumb idea. My writing is notoriously messy, and the effort to write something legible was time consuming and unlikely to be sustained. I also started it in China and used a tool, Posterous, or something like that, (also now defunct), to upload my images and posts. And so now all the images I posted are dead and unrecoverable. So some of my older posts look like this:

Who knows, maybe I already wrote a version of my recent post, Human Intersections, in September of 2010, but unless I dig up my old journal buried in a box in my garage, I’ll never know what I wrote in the old post?

Still, yesterday marked the 900th daily post. I haven’t checked month by month to see if I missed any days, but I know that I’ve been very consistent and if I missed any, it would likely be less than 3 posts in two-and-a-half years. I’m not checking. I’m satisfied to call this daily.

Sometimes it’s really tough to get something out. I wrote 5 (now deleted) paragraphs on two separate ideas before I checked my stats for the first time in months and discovered how many posts I am at. Sometimes I start to write something and think I need to put it away as a draft and work on it when I have more time. Sometimes, like today, my writing wasn’t worth keeping. Other times I start to write and don’t pause until I am done.

But writing every day has been an amazing artistic outlet. It has given me the space and time to think creatively, and it has helped me commit to things because I’ve said them ‘out loud’.

And with that post 901 in a row is done. I won’t bother celebrating 1,000, I’ll just keep going and see where this leads me.

More on writing every day

“When we stop worrying about whether we’ve done it perfectly, we can start working on the process instead. Saturday Night Live doesn’t go on at 11:30pm because it’s ready, It goes on because it’s 11:30. We don’t ship because we are creative, we are creative because we ship. Take what you get, and commit to a process to make it better.” Seth Godin, ‘The Practice’.

Seth has written over 7,000 blog posts on his daily blog, dating back to 2002. One interesting point that he makes is that no matter how many posts he writes, 50% of them are his worst 50%, and not as good as the other half. It’s impossible to do better than that. It’s not about doing great work every day, it’s about ‘shipping’ work every day. It’s about being creative every day, it’s about the process… the practice.

I’ve written pieces that I’ve thought were quite good, and no one will probably ever look back at them. I’ve knocked off a quick post with little thought, and it garnishes comments and positive feedback… and occasionally these two things coincide. But it’s not accolades or attention that matters to me nearly as much as the commitment to write every day. To do the creative work. To wordsmith, to ponder, to question, and to practice the art of writing.

So forgive the typos, the comma splices, the run on sentences. Indulge me when I intentionally break convention. Like this. This is my muse, and I do my best to ship every day. And exactly half of the time, you’ll get better than average work from me.