Read the first sentence. Stop for a second and notice your own reaction. How compelled are you to read the next sentence?

A book is a product. A product is something you buy that does something for you. It might be laundry detergent that gets grass stains out. It might be shoes that are comfortable. Then again, it might be shoes that aren’t comfortable at all, but that still make you feel good. A book is no different from any other product. People buy books to get

This directly contradicts the previous mantra, but it has a different purpose. If you forget that your life is short, you can easily make excuses for not writing. Remind yourself, I won’t live forever. If you remember that you can die at any moment, it can give you the extra urgency you need to do your work while you’re alive.

If you feel like you only have one chance to say something, you make it harder to say. You think you’ve got to get it perfect. You fear your readers will get sick of hearing the same thing again. Nobody is paying that close of attention, and most people like the reminder anyway. Tell yourself, It’s okay to say it again. Allow yourself to write

Turn your writing into a habit. Find a ten-minute window each day where you’ll have the best chance of completing your habit. Most people keep habits best if they do them in the morning. The chaos of life hasn’t gotten a chance to throw all of your intentions off-track. You’ll have a better chance of keeping your habit if you put it after a habit

Tell yourself, I am a bricklayer. You have a certain amount of bricks you want to lay each day, and after the job is done you can feel like you accomplished something.

When you set a target word count, such as 250 words, you get better at expressing your ideas in that length. You get better at keeping yourself from going on tangents, and your writing gets tighter. 250, 500, and 1,000-word posts – and multi-thousand-word pieces like this one, all have a different flow to them. It’s helpful to master one length

When you’re starting out writing, there’s a temptation to treat each line of writing as if it were a drop of liquid gold that must be salvaged. This feeling is made more intense by the fact that you’re only shooting to write a small amount of words each day. Ultimately, you’re aiming to be in the mindset that, There’s more where that came from.

By telling yourself, I can always improve this, you remind yourself that you will take a second, third, or fourth pass at your writing. You kill perfection paralysis.