Writer Identity
The relationship between identity and behavior forms a powerful self-reinforcing cycle. To create lasting change in our habits, we must first shift our self-perception. By adopting a new identity, we naturally align our actions with this new self-image, which in turn strengthens our identity. This cyclical process can lead to profound and sustainable personal growth.
Self-Reinforcing Cycle
- Identity Change → Behavior Change
- Behavior Change → Habit Formation
- Habit Formation → Reinforced Identity
To initiate this cycle, focus on embracing a new identity rather than solely setting behavior-based goals. For instance, instead of saying, “I want to write more.” adopt the identity of “I am a writer.” This shift in self-perception will naturally guide your actions towards writing more frequently.
Beliefs for Writers
Adopting the following beliefs can help you identify as a writer or thinker, thereby encouraging more consistent writing behavior:
Writing is a form of thinking and self-discovery: Envision yourself as a scientist or detective, with a wall of whiteboards covered in ideas, thoughts, questions, insights, and connections. Writing becomes your tool for exploration and understanding.
I engage in constant dialogue with great thinkers through my writing: See your writing process as an intellectual exchange. With AI tools, you can literally discuss your ideas and then organize these conversations into coherent blog posts or essays.
Capturing knowledge prevents it from becoming invisible: As we gain expertise, our knowledge often becomes internalized and automatic. By writing regularly, you preserve insights that might otherwise be lost to unconscious competence.
Writing is my contribution to the collective wisdom: Believe that your unique perspective and experiences have value. By writing, you’re adding to the global pool of knowledge and potentially helping others.
By internalizing these beliefs and embracing the identity of a writer or thinker, you’ll naturally find yourself more inclined to engage in writing behaviors. This, in turn, will reinforce your new identity, creating a positive feedback loop that sustains your writing practice.
Write About What?
Leveraging your digital garden of notes and AI tools can help spark ideas while maintaining your crucial role in the creative process.
Utilizing Your Notes and AI
- Explore Connections Use AI prompts to analyze your notes, such as:
- “What are the conflicting ideas in my notes?”
- “What are the related ideas across different topics?”
- Semantic Expansion AI functions as a sophisticated semantic search engine, employing embedding techniques to distill and compress knowledge from your notes into a high-dimensional vector space.
Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative models typically operate by utilizing algorithms to embed training resources (such as text, prompts, or reference images) into a vector space. When a user provides new input, it’s also embedded, and the model uses algorithms to combine the reference vectors with the new input vector to generate output.
In the context of writing, you can harness this capability by allowing AI to embed your notes, effectively distilling the knowledge into a semantic space. Subsequently, when composing, you can prompt the AI to expand from this semantic space. Furthermore, you can amalgamate multiple semantic spaces to generate novel ideas and connections.
The Value of Human Intervention
While AI can be a powerful tool, it’s crucial to maintain your role in the writing process.
Don’t fully automate your writing. The act of processing information, like in the zettelkasten method, improves your thinking through metaphor-making, drawing analogies, and finding relationships.
Don’t fully automate, you need to trust the process. when we use [[zettelkasten]] to process the information, it is the process of making metaphor, analogies, and finding relation that improve thinking so maybe we should not outsource the process to AI
Writing Environment
Creating an effective writing environment is crucial for developing a consistent writing habit. Drawing from James Clear’s “Atomic Habits,” we can apply four key principles:
- Make it obvious: Set up a dedicated writing space and keep your tools visible.
- Make it attractive: Create an enjoyable pre-writing ritual, like making tea.
- Make it easy: Prepare writing prompts or outlines in advance.
- Make it satisfying: Reward yourself after writing sessions.
Additionally, join a writing community for social motivation and visualize the benefits of consistent writing.
To encourage exploration and creativity, it’s essential to create a low-risk environment for experimentation. This can be achieved by:
- Establishing a platform for sharing drafts without judgment
- Reframing “failed” attempts as valuable learning experiences
By reducing the fear of making mistakes, writers can feel more comfortable taking risks and exploring new ideas, ultimately enhancing their creative output.
Measure Action
To develop a consistent writing habit, it’s crucial to focus on measurable actions rather than striving for perfection. This approach not only encourages regular writing but also improves your skills over time.
Focusing on quantity initially through word count or time-based targets is more effective than striving for quality. This approach aligns with research findings on creativity and productivity, as highlighted in Scott H. Young’s article “Creativity is Productivity”. The article discusses how creative success is often linked to the volume of work produced rather than the pursuit of perfection. It cites research showing that scientists have roughly equal odds of producing their most-cited paper at any stage of their career, suggesting that quantity leads to quality over time.
To illustrate this point, consider the story of two groups of photography students: One group was evaluated based on the number of photos taken, while the other was judged solely on their best single photograph. The quantity-focused group not only took more photos but also produced higher quality work overall. This experiment demonstrates that consistent practice and experimentation, facilitated by a focus on quantity, can lead to improved skills and better outcomes.
By setting word count or time-based targets, writers can create a low-pressure environment that encourages regular practice and experimentation. This approach allows for the natural development of skills and increases the likelihood of producing high-quality work over time.
Make Metrics Engaging
Consider creating data visualizations of your writing progress - seeing your achievements in a visually appealing format can be incredibly satisfying. You might also want to use apps or spreadsheets to keep tabs on your word counts, writing streaks, or the time you spend writing. These tools can provide a tangible sense of accomplishment. And don’t forget the power of community! Sharing your progress with a writing group or an accountability partner can add a social element to your tracking, making it more engaging and fun.
TODO: visualizations of my writing progress is on the way
The Birdcage Effect
Leverage the “birdcage effect” in your writing practice. Just as having a birdcage makes you more likely to keep birds, having a collection of ideas and notes creates a “cognitive birdcage” that attracts and nurtures new thoughts and connections.
By focusing on these actionable measures, you create an environment that encourages consistent writing and fosters creativity. Over time, this quantity-focused approach will naturally lead to improvements in quality, helping you develop both as a writer and a thinker.