My Ship30 Writing Experiment Failed. Here are my learnings.

I set out on a mission to write atomic essays for 15 days on the topic of design ethnography. I only wrote 2500 words, not 3500, and 9 essays, not 15! So, I essentially failed the experiment and here are my learnings.

• By writing about design ethnography daily, I forced myself to structure my thoughts on the topic. The series still needs more refining, polishing, and research.
• Despite being outlined all at once, longer pieces don’t work well when they go out in drips (IMO). It needs some thinking and a couple of rounds of feedback from other people.
• On some days, writing on a tightly scoped-out topic felt extremely forced and, as a result, less enjoyable.
• The format of an atomic essay lends itself to exploring smaller and more immediate and emergent ideas.
• I usually write my ship30 essays at night, after work. So, revisiting topics linked to my professional life felt challenging.

Here’s what I plan to change going forward:

• I will continue writing atomic essays to capture or explore smaller ideas instead of longer, unwieldy pieces.
• I’ve been enjoying my writing practice so far and want to allow myself free rein to explore ideas.
• Writing long essays is something I want to do more of but on a different cadence and using a more rigorous process.

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