Tag Archives: writing

Time limits

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I’ve written quite a bit about creating good habits and using time well. It’s a focus of mine because I find my work day gets absorbed in a whirlwind of busyness and interruptions, and I get home after a long day, exhausted. So using time well matters, and there is always room for improvement.

But time has limits. Time is limited.

These are a few things I’d like to do if I had the time:

  • Podcast – I really enjoy listening to podcasts, and I also enjoy making them. But my last one was almost 4 years ago, and I find editing them time consuming and they are a lot of work for one person.
  • School visits – I would love to travel to innovate schools and learn about them.
  • Connecting- I’d love to spend more time with friends.
  • Video editing – I have a personal video project I’m doing for students at my school and a fun video project I’m doing with my uncle and they both require a fair bit of editing time.
  • Writing – I have 3 book ideas, but it’s hard for me to get sustained writing time. I’ve considered stopping my Daily-Ink and using this time to write other things, but I don’t consistently spend a lot of time writing these and it’s harder to continue an idea for short bursts daily than to pick daily short topics.
  • Traveling – it’s a big world and I’ve seen very little of it.

I could go on but I think I’ve made my point. It doesn’t matter how efficient I get, I will still wish I had more time to do the things I’m passionate about, the things I’m interested in doing… if only I had the time.

The trick isn’t to try to get everything I want to do done. The trick is to create opportunities to do some of these things, and to commit to them fully and in a way that I enjoy doing them without beating myself up for not doing all of them. It’s about not wasting time being inefficient or lazy, but also not running myself ragged and feeling like I’m rushing through time, not getting enough done.

Yes time is limited. And so it is to be enjoyed and not spent worried about what isn’t done, or what still needs to get done. Time is not just limited, it’s also precious.

Having AI write my blog for me

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This is NOT something I plan on doing. I was just interested in seeing what Chat GPT (on the Bing interface) could write in my style. The first blog topic it suggested wasn’t great. It suggested: The Rise of Micro-Entrepreneurship: Empowering Individuals in a Digital Age”

The article was just that, an article, not a Daily-Ink, a ‘let me tell you about this topic’ essay. So then my next prompt was: ‘try a lighter topic please’. (I tend to use ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in my prompts.) This was what Chat GPT came up with:

The Art of Finding Joy in the Little Things

In a world that’s always racing to the next big thing, it’s easy to overlook the small moments that make life truly special. But what if I told you that the secret to happiness might just be hiding in those tiny details we often take for granted?

Take a moment and think about the last time you paused to watch a sunset, or how you felt when you caught the scent of fresh rain on pavement. Remember the warmth of a cozy blanket on a chilly evening, or the infectious laughter of a child. These instances may seem insignificant, but they hold the essence of joy.

It’s in these moments that we find a connection to the world around us. A beautiful melody, a kind word from a stranger, or the perfect cup of coffee can uplift our spirits and remind us that joy doesn’t require grand gestures; it’s all around us, waiting to be noticed.

So, let’s celebrate the little victories, like finding a forgotten bill in your pocket or hitting all green lights on your way home. Let’s find joy in the everyday – in the quiet morning hours before the world wakes up, in the pages of a good book, or in the comfort of our favorite shoes.

Life is a collection of moments, and the happiest people aren’t those who chase after extraordinary experiences, but those who find delight in the ordinary. So here’s to the little things – may they continue to inspire us and bring a touch of magic to our everyday lives.

Embrace the little joys, and watch as they transform your perspective on life!

There are a couple parts that feel like my voice, but not enough of it that I’d mistake this as my own writing. Still, this is much better than ‘The Rise of Micro-Entrepreneurship’… and more in line with a few topics I’ve written about.

I find myself using AI a lot more, but I won’t be using it to write my Daily-Inks. I want this space to be one where I express my thinking, my learning, my voice. For me, the art of finding joy is in a little process called writing, not prompting.

Writing your own chapters

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If your life were a chapter book, how many chapters would it have?

Would you choose to write about long periods of time in a single chapter? Would you provide vignettes? Would you think of your life as seasons or interludes or would it have features and long gaps between stories shared?

How complete would the story be right now?

What chapters are waiting to be written? And how long have you waited?

What would highlight in the current chapter?

Start writing.

Finding the muse

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Sometimes I just need to start writing. I can get stuck trying to think about what to write about and I’m either staring at a blank page, or I’m wondering off on social media. In both cases I’m still stuck feeling like I have nothing to say. Because in reality the blank screen doesn’t really help, and distractions are just…distracting.

Finding the muse is an elusive task, it hides in the shadows of any task you put your mind to. The muse is not something you seek, it is instead something you do. If I want to write, I don’t go looking for topics to write about, I simply start writing. I don’t find it anywhere, it is not an object, it is a verb, an action.

How much time is wasted searching for the right thing to write about, rather than just writing? I would rather delete a full paragraph of writing that I started as inspiration for an actual topic, than sit distracted, believing that the blank page will inspire me, or a TikTok, Tweet, or Instagram reel.

We don’t find the muse when we go looking, instead we create the muse when we start creating.

[This post brought to you after an hour of wasting my time doing exactly what I said you shouldn’t do.]

Creativity struggle

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The one place in my life right now that I seem to be struggling is with being creative. I can find time for everything I need to do… except when I want to do something creative. This includes writing. It doesn’t seem to be about time, it seems to be more about focus.

I can put my head down and get to work. I can push myself on the treadmill or exercise bike. I’m struggling a bit to work out hard for strength exercises, but I still do them. I’m home a good amount of time now after a lot of late nights at work to start the school year, and I have been sticking to my routines that I’ve created.

But I can’t seem to focus on listening to books or podcasts. I can’t sit and start any creative tasks, and I find myself easily distracted any time I have down time. Normally blog post ideas come at me and I throw them into a note on my phone, or I see something interesting and my mind starts making connections to new ideas. Normally, but not right now. Now I’m in a bit of a creative slump. I’ll keep my routines that are working. I’ll try to get more sleep, since I tend to not get enough, and I won’t try to add anything new to my plate. I think I’ve got enough going on.

The one thing that seems to be working well right now is a new meditation app called Balance. So I’ll continue to meditate, exercise, and of course write something daily, all while being grateful for the things going well right now. I don’t know what to do differently to spark my creative juices, so I won’t stir things up, I’ll just be patient. It’s hard to come up with creative ways to be more creative when you aren’t feeling creative.

Dead links

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I started my Daily-Ink blog in China in September 2010, but this name and site came a little later than the original blog. Originally it was created using a blogging platform called Posterous, which you could use via mail. Simply send an email to your personal blog address and it automatically added any pictures, links to videos, and your writing to a post with the email Subject as the title of the blog. Living in a country with a very challenging filter wall, this was a simple way to get a small blog post out without actually having to access a blog or having to upload pictures etc. It was a great tool. But then it died and I just started using WordPress, like I do now. However, I guess I didn’t follow the process to preserve my data and now all the links for images and videos are dead. So this is what my May 2010 archive page looks like.

But it’s not just my blog that’s the issue, it’s the blogs of others as well. The first post seen above, ‘Memorize This’ has links to two other bloggers, Joe Bower and Will Richardson. The link to Joe’s blog just goes to a “HTTP Status: 404 (not found)” page. However the link to Will’s page goes to this:

That is NOT the Will Richardson post I was looking for! I did a search on his updated blog location and found the post, “Is it Really Learning?“. I also went to my post and changed it there so I no longer link to this web-address stealing essay site, instead I link to the correct and intended post.

But realistically, I’m not going to go through my entire blog to do this. Even if I did, I’d probably spend more time trying to replace my own work, and not links to other sites. Because as I shared in my “Goodbye Posterous” post 11 years ago, “I decided to move my little-used Posterous site to this [‘Daily-Ink’] address, as a place to easily upload photos of what I thought would be a daily hand-written journal“, and the only record I seem to have of any of my journal writing is the screen shot I took of my first hand-written daily-ink for that post.

And while I’d love to recover all of these hand-written posts and the videos and pictures that I shared of ‘TIC’ – This is China moments, the reality is that most of them are gone forever.

And that makes me wonder, where will all this go in 20 years? In 50 years? I know I can find my original Pair-a-Dimes blog on the Internet Archive… is that where this blog and my current Pair-a-Dimes blog are destined to go? I guess so. I’ve paid for DavidTruss.com for another decade, but I haven’t paid the web host for that long. How long until this is just a series of dead links? I really haven’t given it too much thought, I just know that for now I plan to keep writing, keep sharing, and keep my links alive a little longer.

Uncertainty and doubt

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I had a dream last night. In it someone I care about was asking my why I even bother writing my daily blog? She called it boring and a waste of time. In all honesty, this being said in my dream bugged me more than if the person in my dream actually said it in person. It bothered me because I am the author of my dreams, not the people I see in them.

So essentially I was casting doubt on myself. That’s harsh.

Why bother? Why make the effort? Who do I think I am, that anyone would care to read what I have to say? These are the internal voices of uncertainty and doubt. These are questions that tear me down rather than build me up.

These are the pangs that prevent people from sharing their ideas, their writing, their art, their creative expression, and even their love.

“I’m not good enough.”

“Other people are so much better.”

“I’m not creative enough.”

“I have nothing of value to say.”

It’s easier to silence the naysayers than it is to silence your own inner voice. I can handle all kinds of feedback. I can learn from the harshest of criticism. A perfect example is an angry, yelling coach never upset me, I just took the feedback.

But that inside voice… that nagging self-doubt, that self-uncertainty, that is something I do not always battle well with. It holds me back. It keeps me from speaking up, from stepping up, from confidently sharing my thoughts and opinions.

Why is it that the internal battles we face are so much harder than the outside ones?

What helps me is consistency. It’s developing habits where I can push through the uncertainty and doubt. It’s creating small accomplishments that lead me to successful outcomes. No, I’m not going to be the athlete I was in my 20’s ever again… but I’m fitter now than I ever was in my 30’s and 40’s, and I suffer less back pain than I did in my 20’s. Oh, and no one workout got me where I am today.

In fact it wasn’t the good workouts that got me here, it was the days that I didn’t want to work out, the times I had to talk myself into just going through the motions that made me get to this point. I’m floundering a bit right now with working out, but I still get my butt on my stationary bike or treadmill every day. I still don’t let myself miss 2 days in a row, and rarely let myself miss 3 days in a week.

Some days I might hit the publish button on my blog and think ‘that’s not a great post’. But I still hit the button, I still make the effort. I still read over my work and try to edit it. And I still get mad at myself when I see a typo or wrong word published. The same critic that tries to stop me can also be my friend. It doesn’t just shut me down, it adds an element of high expectations towards all my final work.

And that’s why my dream this morning hurt me a bit. It was my inner voice being a gremlin, trying to find fault with myself, my work, my creativity. Uncertainty and doubt are not usually our friends, they are the bedfellows of procrastination and excuses. They are the enemies of confidence and productivity. And while they may lay dormant for a while, they can creep up on us when we least expect it. Like in our dreams…

But I’m awake now. It’s time to hit the publish button. It’s time to get on the treadmill. There is work to be done and I’ll just tuck the uncertainty and doubt away.

It can be a struggle

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Committing to writing every day is a challenge. I’ve added to that the pressure to publish what I write… Every. Single. Day.

It is a comfort to know that it doesn’t have to be great. That my audience is small, and that sometimes I can write something I think is great and no one else notices… And sometimes something I wrote just off the cuff resonates with people. I find that fascinating.

Still, there are times I am stuck, have writer’s block, and yet feel immense pressure to be thoughtful and creative. It’s a real struggle. I can develop self-doubt and question myself. I wonder what’s so unique about my perspective that I should have so much to say? I feel like an imposter, spewing ramblings that aren’t worth sharing. Sometimes I just can’t think of anything to write. Nothing comes to me except the dread that I’ve got nothing else of any value to say.

Then I remember something. I remember that if it was really easy, I would have gotten bored and given up by now. I remember that I love to write and before writing daily, I seldom wrote at all, despite my desire to do so. I recognize that though the struggle is real, it’s a struggle I desire to have.

And then some days the words just flow. Other days they start slow and the flood gates open and I can’t type fast enough. And so the days that it’s really hard, the days when I feel that I have nothing of value to say, those are the days that matter most.

The hard days are the ones that provide me with the consist opportunity to write. The struggle is real, and necessary, and even enjoyable. Well, enjoyable may not be the right term, but more enjoyable than tolerable. The hard days are hard, but rewarding… that’s the better term. The days I struggle create the space for the great days.

The hard days are a necessary part of a routine that opens up a river of ideas to let creativity, thoughtfulness, and self expression flow in. The hard days can feel like a dam, but a dam allows for consistency of pressure, allowing for the generation of energy, of ideas, of words flowing regularly. The daily commitment is not to produce great work, it’s to produce work consistently, without excuses. Not without struggle, but despite it… Because of it. Yes, it’s a struggle, but a struggle I need to experience if I’m going to continue to create; continue to craft; continue to write. Every. Single. Day.

This, on a day when I thought I had absolutely nothing more to say.

The silhouette

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I was a passenger in a car driving on an overpass downtown, and I saw a silhouette of a person sitting at their computer in front of their window.

A writer of novels completing a best seller.

A manager looking at the day’s accomplishments.

A YouTube watcher waiting for Uber Eats to arrive.

A lonely person FaceTiming mom.

A work from home entrepreneur talking to a mentor or mentee.

A holiday planner booking their next flight.

A silhouette of a person on a computer, alone in a room. 1,000’s of possible stories, each one of them a momentary reality, and then the thought, the moment is gone. Just the silhouette remains.

(Re)stacking habits

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I used to wake up, write a blog post, meditate for 10 minutes, and work out, all before getting in the shower around 6:45-7am. I used the Atomic Habits strategy of stacking my habits one-after-the-other so that I reduced a lot of friction in my mornings. I’d start writing and the rest of the stacked habits just happened one after the other.

A couple things happened to change this. I have been spending more time writing, stopped meditating, and started spending more time stretching. However, it was the writing time that was the big change since both the meditation and stretching were both 10 minutes long. What I’ve noticed is that my workouts and stretching are getting shorter.

So, I need to unstack my current habits. I need to write most or all of my posts at night, then I can start my morning with meditation, cardio, stretch, then a strength routine dedicated to one or two muscles, which is my usual routine. Essentially I’m not really unstacking my habits, I’m re-stacking them in a way that they give me the outcomes I want without compromising any of them at the expense of others… I just changed the title of this post from ‘Unstacking habits’ to ‘(Re)stacking habits’… Because stacking works, but it needs to work for all the habits, not just some of them.

As a good friend said, I won’t know how well this works until I try it for at least a couple weeks, because a few days aren’t long enough for a pattern to be formed, for a habit to truly become a habit. Let’s see how this goes. If I remember, I’ll give a progress report some time later this month.