Habits and streaks

I think most of us know that "A streak is something – anything, really – that happens over a period of time without a break. It’s a type of gamification – the process of adding game-like elements to tasks to make them [our tasks] more appealing" (Hamilton, 2024). 

For example, by using a Fitbit, I have maintained an average of over 15,000 steps a day since September 2023 (and between 10,000 and 14,000 per day since 2016). And I have been writing daily without a break on 750words (2025) since 2015, and maintained a 2200+ day streak in that time... and more than 7 million words. Because of those pieces of kit (the Fitbit wearable and phone app; and the 750Words site), the badges and acknowledgements kept me nudging me to keep going until I built habits (read more on habits here). 

And now I have those habits, the practices have become part of my daily routines. Walking for a good length of time with the dogs, getting outside and getting my heart rate up will hopefully keep me fitter for longer. And writing a daily diary helps me keep track of what I did, and when (read more here). Both of these practices can be maintained without too much effort, now. Autopilot, perhaps.

However, there is a line to be drawn between a habit and an obsession. Streaks "can become all-consuming" (Hamiton, 2024). A reporter explained that "One parent I spoke to told me her daughter is 'addicted' to her two-year long snapstreak" (Hamilton, 2024), which is a Snapchat streak. Social media is designed to keep us scrolling, potentially leading to obsessive or addictive behaviours. The process of sharing our streaks and results with our friend groups can amplify those unhealthy behaviours (Hamilton, 2024). For myself, the only sharing of these personal habits I do are here on this blog, which is a bit removed. There is less immediacy.

However, we don't have to share our data for things to get out of hand. My sister-in-law kept increasing her daily fitness regime on her wearable to beat the previous day's total and nearly burned out. She couldn't sleep until she had bettered the previous day and would be often found frantically stair-climbing close to midnight. She found that for her mental health she had to stop wearing her device. 

Doing 'enough' is quite a few notches more relaxed than obsession.

Sam

References:

750Words. (2023, June 12). New experimental feature: the Streak Fairy. https://community.750words.com/c/blog/new-experimental-feature-the-streak-fairy

Hamilton, C. (2024, September 8). Don’t break the streak! How a daily ritual can enrich your life – or become an unhealthy obsession. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/sep/08/streak-daily-ritual-can-enrich-your-life-or-become-unhealthy-obsession

read more "Habits and streaks"

Writing and reflection

If we aren't familiar with reflective writing, but want to give it a try, there is a simple exercise we can do. Over four days, taking maybe quarter of an hour each day, we write our deepest feelings - i.e. expressive writing - about an emotional or challenging time we have experienced (Pennebaker, 2004). That's it. 

If you haven't read Pennebaker's 2004 book, it is worth getting a copy. The practical techniques it contains in what is largely a workbook range from Julia Cameron-esque morning pages to writing using a mirror; from dancing prior to writing to close handwriting examination; from covering our writing as we go to using nonverbal expressions (Pennebaker, 2004). If we write about our crises - effectively confide to paper/screen - that act seems to improve our health (Pennebaker, 2004). After trauma, the research appears to show that the act of 'confiding' is very beneficial for us, leading to fewer doctor's visits (Pennebaker, 2004). The research indicates that even this type of short-term focused writing is beneficial: strengthening immune systems, improving scholarly performance, and potentially improving lives (Pennebaker & Smyth, 2016).  If you want to dig more into the research, read Pennebaker and Smyth (2016).

While I know there is value in actually writing by hand, I am not someone who will do that. I have been a keyboard warrior since 1989, and I know I will not hand-write if I can possibly avoid it. So for me, using 750words to write each day provides my safety valve, and my confidante for emotional processing (read more on my 750words experiences here). 

The founders of 750words, Buster and Kellianne Benson, designed a web platform for us to pour in our daily Julia Cameron-esque morning pages, also drawing on the work of Pennebaker (2004). A hand-written page is roughly 250 words; morning words are three pages: hence the 750word daily target (Benson, 2024). Most days I would write maybe twice that amount. But I have managed to write pretty much every day, and when I wrote this post I was on an unbroken 2100 day streak.

The interesting thing is that people who write on the 750word platform often write testimonials and inspirational notes. Buster has collected the 11,000 notes written by members of the platform, analysing them, and found that they fell into roughly four categories: observations; orientations; decisions; and actions (Benson, 2024). They make an interesting collection of feedback to read on Medium (here). 

If you can't keep a diary; if you struggle with writing reflection that goes deeper than the superficial; have a crack at 750words. You may unleash your untapped trauma processor.

Sam

References:

Benson, B. (2024, December 4). I analyzed 15 years of testimonials from users of 750words.com to learn how their private journaling habits have helped them: Or, how I plan to get around the task of marketing my site by letting people speak for themselves. Medium. https://medium.com/750-words/i-analyzed-15-years-of-testimonials-from-users-of-750words-com-to-learn-how-journaling-helped-them-9665c93814e8

Pennebaker, J. W. (2004). Writing to Heal: A guided journal for recovering from trauma. New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Pennebaker, J. W., & Smyth, J. M. (2016). Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain (3rd ed.). The Guilford Press.

read more "Writing and reflection"

Reflecting on PD

Over the past couple of years I have written a few posts on the intersection between professional development and reflection (here, and logging that PD here), but there is always a bit more to explore. 

When it comes to personal reflection of our practice, there are a few ways to review our own development; we can use a practice diary; we can use our networks; we can get some type of external assessment; and we can mine the data we have gathered for themes (Drude et al., 2019).

These four ideas can be pretty easy to embed into our practice (see the image accompanying this post for details). But the easiest, and - in my view - the biggest hitter is a practice diary of some sort (Drude et al., 2019). For myself, daily I write up what happened on the previous day. What tasks I undertook, what went well, what did not go well, what surprised me, and what remains to be done. If this work is done electronically, then it can be searched for repeating themes and tendencies - meaning that we also meet the fourth category; data-based feedback. As I have tended to use a secure online platform, 750 words (read more here) the platform provides daily data on mood, also providing data-based feedback; and - as I download my daily posts - I can also search for themes over time. 

The third option on the table, that of external examination, can be a little more costly, but by undertaking some type of formal learning where there is an assessment, we get a gauge on how well we are absorbing the new ideas. We can then back that learning up through having professional supervision - even if only a couple of sessions a year - so that we get an independent check on how we are building our learning into our practice. 

The second item on the table, gaining feedback from our networks (Drude et al., 2019), can also be done in a low cost way. If we think of this as being active in our communities of practice, and having open conversations with others in our field, we can learn a lot. We can sign up for blogs, vlogs, and open source journals (see here for some ideas) Also signing up to various professional organisations' mailing groups we can intersect with new ideas at a relatively low cost. And if we have signed up for a course or two, we might be able to keep interaction going with some of our fellow learners, and share new ideas that way as well.

I would love to hear what other ideas you have for PD!

Sam

References:

750 Words. (2025). Home. https://new.750words.com/

Drude, K. P., Maheu, M., & Hilty, D. M. (2019). Continuing professional development: Reflections on a lifelong learning process. Psychiatric Clinics, 42(3), 447-461. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2019.05.002

read more "Reflecting on PD"

A galactic outcome: 6 million words

Reflection: what is it good for? Well, long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I reached a milestone of 6 million words in my 750words account, earning a "Galactic Library" badge. Some people might see this as just this past weekend, which is OK too. But I am going with the galaxy far, far away because it matches with the whole Galactic Library thing. 

How does a galactic library badge relate to reflection? Well (second one), I attended a MOOC in 2015, run by Prof Inger Mewburn of ANU, called "How to Survive your PhD" as part of my PhD preparations. On that course, I was introduced to "morning pages" - or 'morning words' I remember them as - used by authors as a mechanism to holystone the creative decks before commencing their daily professional writing (Cameron, 1992; Mewburn, 2015). As a career practitioner, reflective practice is a key element of learning, processing, and personal development, and writing makes our thought processes concrete (Schippers & Zeigler, 2019). I loved the idea of morning words. An un-judged emptying of trivia: "three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness" (Cameron, 1992, p. 10). Yes, this was intended to be handwritten, but - for me - I don't think the manual aspect is the key; it is the getting-rid-of that helps. Three pages appears to be the 'magic' volume, translating into a minimum of 750 words.

Well (the third one). While myself and dairy-ing were not close friends, myself and 750words got along like une Maison en feu. I find myself having completed 2816 days of writing since joining up (a 99% success rate), with a streak - unbroken days - of 1619... nearly four and a half years. I have written pretty much every day since I started on the 750words site in 2015, and still find it pretty easy. I thought that having smashed out 6m words was worth celebrating: not for the content, because - while some of it became 'real' writing, a lot of it was just purging - it was the turning up to do it regularly that holds value for me.

I emptied out things that may have festered internally. I worked out what things really meant. I decided what I could let go, and allowed myself to let those things disappear into my rear-vision mirror; to become the past. I decided what I needed to hold onto; and polished them to keep. Filtering out the currents of space (Asimov, 1952) in my head, and holding onto the stars was a truly galactic outcome.

I have written about written reflection (here) and 750words (here), but it is always worth a repeat. Signing up to 750words can be done here, if you are interested in giving this a try. I am fairly sure that, before you sign up, you can read about "The Artist's Way" and get an explanation of morning pages here (Benson & Benson, 2019; Cameron, 1992). 

See what value you may get from your Galactic Library :-)

Sam

References:

Azimov, I. (1952). The Currents of Space. Doubleday & Company, Inc.

Benson, B. & Benson, K. (2019). Hello! Welcome to the shiny and new 750 Words. https://new.750words.com/write

Cameron, J. (1992). The Artist's Way: A spiritual path to higher creativity. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Perigee Books.

Mewburn, I. (2015). How to Survive Your PhD [MOOC]. Australia National University/EdX. https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:ANUx+RSIT-01x+3T2015/info

Schippers, M. C., & Ziegler, N. (2019). Life crafting as a way to find purpose and meaning in life. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2778, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02778

read more "A galactic outcome: 6 million words"

Still 750wording after all these years

I realised that I haven't mentioned my daily writing on 750words.com for a while. I have written about this before here, but to recap, each day I write at least 750 words to empty my head before I start my working day.

I might write about what I have to do; what I have done; what is troubling me; what I am planning; the start of blog posts; elements of articles; or fragments of all. Writing a diary never 'stuck' with me, but 750words.com seems to, as - by the time this post goes live - I will written close to 3.5m words online since 2015.

My writing is shared with no one: it is entirely for my own reflection, my thinking, my dissection of events. It helps ensure that I stay grateful for my opportunities, and learn from my mistakes.

The site creators, Kellianne and Buster, give people 30 days free to see if the site will work for them. After that, we can pay the price of a cup of coffee each month to stay a member. Again, if it 'sticks' for us, then we can contact Kellianne and pay for a lifetime account, which is what I did quite early on.

Each month there is a one month challenge. We can sign up to write for a month without missing a day: pay a forfeit if we miss; or earn a cup of patronage if we make it. The cups of patronage build up over time, and can be used to vote for new site features, to write notes of inspiration, or to propose new features ourselves.

I think five years has been a good test for me that - for me - this is very sticky daily writing indeed :-D


Sam

read more "Still 750wording after all these years"

Two Million Words

Having written about the benefits of using 750words.com a number of times (articles here), suddenly two million words have been racked up on my 750words.com odometer since November 2016. It is quite staggering how fast this total has grown.

In reaching this milestone, I have been thinking about just how much we each probably write in our lifetime. We tend to treat writing as ephemera. We don't stop to think about all the notes we jot down, the letters, emails and reports we create, because there is often nothing to mark its creation. Writing is a tool for us to do other things. My daily reflections don't represent my total daily output - that is much greater than what goes into 750words.com.

The process of how we humans came to create writing in the first place is such a miraculous thing. The shift from symbolism in images, to characters and runes is like a stroke of lightning... intricate and fantastical. If this was a story, who would have the imagination to write an evolution from coloured hand prints on a cave wall to the internet?

Before writing, we thought, talked and sang, and many cultures, such as Māori and Pasifika, are still strong in those traditions. Many people still prefer to reflect narratively: whether through talking, thinking or singing. But I some ways I am a 'modern miss'. it is writing which helps me to process, to think, to turn things around and try to have a look at them from a different direction.

And thank you, Kellianne and Buster, for 750words.com to help me do that.


Sam

read more "Two Million Words"

I write, therefore I am

Three years ago I decided that my blog strategy would be to write posts as I came by the inspiration, but to schedule those posts so that they were released three times a week on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday, regardless of when I wrote them. This means that when I get busy, I don’t have to be frantically writing on top of everything else.

When I write - over summer and in the mid-winter break, usually - I draw from an idea bank which is a mix of partially constructed posts which I have saved as a draft post (with a title, a few guiding words and some links) in my blog management system, or - especially if I am away - in 750words. I have blogged about 750words before (read those posts here), which I use to help me develop my writing habit a little bit at a time, every day.

At the beginning of the new academic year, I may have three months of posts scheduled and circling in holding pattern. While I do write throughout the year, I can't keep up with posts going live, so scheduled posts steadily deplete. By the start of the next summer break I may only have one or two posts left, and need to focus on completing drafts and writing up banked ideas. While I may at times have been writing posts one behind the next one scheduled, I have kept to my current three-posts-a-week pattern since May of 2015.

I write for myself. This means that my blog lacks focus, as I write on a broad variety of topics. This is not the normal blogging pattern, and - as all the experts say - is not a strategy designed for fame and fortune through reaching and tuning into to a particular audience.

Writing is a process that I enjoy. I am a knowledge magpie, and will sometimes simply write to clarify my own thoughts. Some posts are simply 'notes to self' or a banked idea for how to fix something that has broken. Some posts are client-informative; some are student-informative. I write on leadership, on self-leadership, and on learning... and on anything which takes my fancy, really.

I write, and send my writing into the ether. And sometimes people comment to say they like what I have written, which is nice.


Sam

read more "I write, therefore I am"

One Million Words

I have written about the benefits I have gained from using 750words.com a number of times (see the list here). However, a couple of months ago, I realised that I had clocked up one million words on my 750words.com odometer since November 2016. That's roughly half a million words deliberately written each year... by me.

Of course, it is unstructured, unpolished, full of mistakes and doesn't have any particular central theme (unless you count me as being at the centre of it). I couldn't sell it - ie, I am not an author - as it would be meaningless to anyone else. But it helps me to make sense of my world, and to keep track of progress: in the main, being used as a combination 'to do' list, a 'have done' and a 'have felt' list.

At the outset, I decided that those daily entries would be as long as I needed to tease ideas out. I wouldn't limit my daily output to 750 words, but would write until I had reached a logical conclusion. This approach seems to work for me. There have been days early on where I lost the plot at two hundred and fifty words and couldn't push through (some days where I copied my grocery list in, or recited numbers!). But there are days now when I realise that two hours have melted and I have done two or three thousand words.

Not only is a million words a staggering amount to write, but it made me realise that it is probably less than a quarter of the amount that I write each day: the rest being written as emails, professional and social media posts, blog entries, articles, course outlines, teaching instructions, procedures, policies, development documents and client notes. I figured that I probably write well over two million words a year.

Fascinating. So "Thank you!" Buster & Kellianne, and here's to another million!


Sam

read more "One Million Words"

Driscoll and Reflection

I have recently being doing a FutureLearn course called "Discovering Your PhD Potential" (here). As part of that course, we were asked to find a method to undertake regular reflection during the course.

Due to my career practice, and as an educator, I am familiar with reflection as a tool for processing and self-improvement. There are a number of theories I like, but Driscoll's "What", "Now What", and "So What" (2007) is probably the easiest of them to digest (this model I once thought was the property of Rolfe et al, but some research led me to discover that the 'creator' is a bit contested between the UK-based Driscoll and the US-based Borton).

I have written about it how to use this in the past, but it is worth recapping. Driscoll's method can be viewed in the video below:

For my daily written reflection, I currently use 750words (https://750words.com/) to write daily 'morning words'. It works very well; you can decide if you want to make your writing public or private, and whatever you write is downloadable. I download monthly, and compile my writing into a Word doc. I am currently a few thousand words over three quarters of a million words (it is surprising how quickly those words have mounted up).

The founders - Buster and Kellianne - run the 750words site with very low membership fees. When you join, you get 30 days free and then the cost is $5 per month. I paid for a lifetime membership and have been using this site for almost two years, writing almost daily (98% hit rate).

I still enjoy it, and it helps me think about the what, the now what, and the so what of my writing.


Sam

References:

• Benson, B. & Benson, K. (n.d.) 750 Words: Hello, welcome to a little thing called 750 Words. http://750words.com/
• Driscoll, J. (Ed.) (2007) Practising Clinical Supervision: A Reflective Approach for Healthcare Professionals (2nd ed.). Baillière Tindall.
• University of Leicester (2017). Discovering your PhD Potential. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/research-question/1/todo/11258

read more "Driscoll and Reflection"

Inspiration to write

In undertaking a MOOC recently on academic writing at Berkeley, I was asked by another student on the course how I got the inspiration to keep a blog.

This gave me pause. On reflection, I think I get inspiration from teaching, consulting and because I straddle four fields - management/leadership, business, sport and careers. This means that there is always something to write about. Doing any kind of learning also help me to reflect. I read a lot, as I am researching, and do a lot of writing in the various aspects of my job.

Professional media and news media also helps me to write. As I belong to a few LinkedIn groups, following the discussions often gives me a thread to expand into a post of my own. Sometimes email conversations will give me inspiration.

All those things sparks ideas to write up. Then, because daily I use www.750words.com, I use that platform and task to tease my ideas out more fully. The writing on 750words gets recycled, and the product is posted on my blog, with a image that I create.

Sometimes partial ideas will sit as drafts on my blog for a while before they are polished enough to be posted. I aim to publish three posts a week, but tend to write more than three. This means that I have between four and eight weeks of posts scheduled, depending on how prolific my writing has been.

However, sometimes it is difficult to think of topics! In some cases, what I have done is to dip into one of my teaching slides, and write a post up around it. This will happen when I am busy - overloaded - elsewhere, and this is why I have built up a buffer for these 'dry' writing times. Interestingly, it was Stephen King who taught me that (1998, p. 28):

You see, although I have published a book a year [...], I wrote two books in four of those ten years, publishing one and ratholing the other. I don’t remember ever talking about [...] what I was doing: saving up nuts.

Thanks Mr King. It's a good way to keep up a blog: write when the inspiration is there and save like a squirrel does for winter, eat the savings when food is short :-)


Sam

References:

• King, S. (1998). Bag of Bones. USA: Scribner.
• Sokolik, M. (2017). Academic and Business Writing. Retrieved to August 2017 from https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:BerkeleyX+ColWri2.2x+2T2017/course/

read more "Inspiration to write"

How I am using 750 words

As you will have no doubt previously read, I joined a website called 750words.com on 11 November 2015.

Since then, I have been writing - like it says on the tin - 750 words almost every day.

Not only has my membership of this site been great for creating blog posts, but I have also been finding it useful for working through things in my head, and for working through motivational blocks around things which I tend to procrastinate about.

Perhaps 40% of the time, I use it like a diary. However, because the service is online and it provides some statistics about my writing and what I write about, for me it works better than a paper diary.

I particularly like the statistics that the site creates for you, developed by Buster, the website's co-creator. After you complete your writing, the daily statistics show you how many words you've written per minute, analyses the words to tell you your moods on that day, and the focus of your writing. While often I feel that the analysis is off-track, it provides me with a great deal of entertainment. I think I like the summary approach of it.

In the past, I've not been able to write a diary for any length of time. I have found that, unless I have had a reason to write (ie, that I am writing a story within my diary), my diary-keeping has lapsed in under three months.

But this time, with 750 words, it appears to be different. I am well past three months... in fact, I have only missed eight days thus far: one day when I was travelling without Internet connection; three when I was waiting for my sign up to be processed after my 30 day trial expired (my fault; I had foolishly emailed the other co-creator's - Kellianne's - home email account instead of her business account to arrange my payment); three days when I was in hospital; and - for some reason that I cannot explain - my 100th day. I just forgot.

I think it is a combination of the statistics, the badges, and the playfulness and enthusiasm of the creators that is keeping me writing. For now.

While I am not sure that the use of 750words.com is making me a better writer, like any kind of 'fitness' training, practising the doing will build my ability to get words on a page.


Sam

read more "How I am using 750 words"

Blogs and Bloggers

(w3tech, 2015)

As you will all know, I signed up to a site called 750words.com, which encourages you to write each and every day.

There is power in this, in that it allows you to brain dump whatever you have going on, clearing crap which is preventing you from getting to more important things.

You emptying your mental rubbish, organise the recycling, wipe your "to do list" whiteboard, ponder the "why did I do that?" and the "I wonder if I should..."s, and wash out the compost container. Mental housework.

But this writing can be recycled into blog posts. All of us have hobbies, and, for those of us who sort out our thoughts through writing, we can repurpose our writing into blog posts.

In general, the more we do something, the better we get at it. That too is true of blogging - as long as we are open to self-reflection and have a growth mindset - the more we write, the easier and more polished the practice of writing becomes.

Because your writing improves, your ability to develop coherent thought and convey it simply, clearly and elegantly will also improve. You can use the process of writing to tease out more complex and reflective ideas that helps you to make better sense of the world around you.

Through regular blogging, you will document your thoughts and practices over time, creating a record of your own development. This gives you an interesting overview of what interested you, where your focus lay and where your future interests might lie. Fascinating to take a big picture view of that over a few years!

You will also learn a lot about the platform you chose to use: and there are many of them, in addition to many reasons for chosing whatever is chosen.
 
I use Blogspot - Blogger - because I created a blogger blog well before WordPress, or the more recent platforms such as Tumblr, had been thought of. I carried on with this site because I completed a Udemy course which enabled me to turn my blogger blog into a website, so dumping my old FrontPage website.

Blogger forms both my blog and my content management system (CMS). Google, as the owner and creator of Blogspot, hosts my website for free. I was able to point my domain name at my blogger site so that it shows up as a website, not a blog (ie, no 'blogspot' in the domain name), and to have additional static webpages. Blogger's number five on the graphic above.

There are lots of people who have created freeware apps and tools to make the websites work seamlessly with mobile, to add sales functionality, shop-fronts, payment options, and graphics management... and usually with creative commons licencing.

However, out in the lead by far, the number one blog/CMS platform is WordPress, which forms the backbone of 25% of all websites (w3techs, 2015), so having a CMS market share of 59%.

WordPress also has a reasonable amount of freeware apps and tools. WordPress site design is generally of a higher quality than Blogger, but Blogger has the advantage of being picked up better in Google searches (SEO). However, WordPress users can bolt-on the Yoast app to improve site SEO.

Overall, in order for me to use WordPress in the same way as I have used Blogger, I think I would have to use the paid version. There are two systems which operate side by side: WordPress.org which is the free, hosted version, and WordPress.com, which is the commercial version.

Then you only need images to illustrate when you push your post out (read here), and a method for sharing your news. But that latter is a story for another day.


Sam

• Reference: w3techs (14 December 2015). Usage of content management systems for websites. Retrieved 14 December 2015 from http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all

read more "Blogs and Bloggers"

750 Words

Having completed Dr Inger Mewburn's MOOC, How to Survive Your PhD, recently, I am currently working through all the links and tips I have found through coming into contact with a 13,500 strong global academic community.

One of the tips I received was a link to a site called 750words.com (via the Debsnet challenge). The idea behind this site is that it encourages you to write.

You sign up, and then aim to free-write 750 words each day for three days. It's a brain dump of getting out the crap that may be preventing you from doing other things.

The idea is that you are not writing with purpose: you are just emptying your mental rubbish, organising the recycling, wiping your "to do list" whiteboard, pondering on the "why did I do that?" and the "I wonder if I should..."s, and washing out the compost container. Mental housework, if you will. Meditation for the writer.

Many people who have left comments on the site say that they treat this as their warm up for their real writing.

I have signed up for the free trial, which lasts for 30 days. Membership appears to be about USD$60 per year: the price of a US cup of coffee a month (update: though I bought a lifetime membership for USD$100 in December 2015).

After three days of writing your 750 words, you get some points on your board. If you keep writing for x number of days, you get badges.

If, after your 30 day free trial, you pay up and become a member, there are some acknowledgements for doing - say - 100 days straight. As a paid up member, you get your writing statistics, which will help you to decide how often you should write, what time during the day is best for you to do that (you can set up a reminder email to come to you to kick you in the pants), and to set other writing goals. It also gives you feedback on themes within your writing, which are very interesting.

I have only done three days thus far, but of course, I have subverted the site for my own purposes. Instead of free-writing, what I have done is write blog posts.  After three days of 750words, I am six blog posts ahead.

Not remotely what Buster & Kellianne intended.

But useful for me!


Sam

References:

• Australian National University & Mewburn, Inger (2015). How to Survive Your PhD. Retrieved 13 November 2015 from https://www.edx.org/course/how-survive-phd-anux-rsit-01x
• Benson, Buster & Benson, Kellianne (n.d.) 750 Words: Hello, welcome to a little thing called 750 Words. Retrieved 13 November 2015 from http://750words.com/
• the édu flâneuse (2015). The Research Student Blog Challenge – #HDRblog15 – November 2015. Retrieved 7 November 2015 from https://theeduflaneuse.wordpress.com/2015/10/22/hdr-blog-challenge-2015/

read more "750 Words"