I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
100 days
100 days.
I can't decide if it is a long time or a really short amount of time.
At just over 3 months—more than a quarter of a year—it's certainly not easy to do something for 100 days straight. But what if you just decided to anyway?
What if you took that thing that you've been wanting to learn or do and just committed to it for 100 days straight?
Today marks 100 days of writing every day. It's not the longest streak I've had (I once wrote 1,000 words a day for 600 consecutive days), but it's the most consistent writing I've done in at least 5 years.
I've tried many times in those years to rebuild a writing habit, but what made it hard was the indefinite nature. I know I want to write every day, but doing that until... well, forever feels so daunting. So what helped me was committing just for a fixed amount of time.
Long enough to build a real habit, but not so long that I was too intimidated to start.
100 days is that perfect length.
I'm surprised at how quickly 100 days flew by. But I shouldn't be surprised. Days and weeks are a blur through the busyness of running a company and raising a family. You wake up and think, "how is it the weekend already!?!" Time passes regardless. So use it to form the habits and become the person you want to be.
Now that I've hit 100 days there's no way I'm stopping. The habit is real and now I'm doubling down for the next 100 days.
In fact, I'm starting to learn to play the piano and committing to practice daily for 100 days.
What's the thing you've been putting off learning or practicing? Don't wait for January 1st. If you started today you could be 23% of the way to 100 days by the time everyone else gets around to setting their New Year's resolutions.
Choose your challenge.
Commit to it daily for 10o days.
Then start.
***
WHAT I'M WATCHING
For all mankind
What if the soviets were the first to the moon? What would all the downstream effects of that be? I really like this new AppleTV show about an alternate reality where the space race with the soviets didn't end. I've been super impressed with all the AppleTV shows, its really fun to see what they're doing. This one is a fun blend of real world characters and events with a slightly different path things could have taken.
You can find it on AppleTV+ »
WHAT I'M READING
Why the Survival of the Airlines Depends on Frequent Flyer Programs
This is fascinating! I had no idea that airlines themselves have almost no value without their frequent flyer programs. But the very value of those programs puts them in a tough position during this pandemic, as cutting routes to save money could lead to losing frequent flyers, and therefore their only source of value. This was such an interesting read, and frankly I don't envy the leaders of the airlines right now. They have some really tough calls to make.
Read the full article here »
Thanks for joining me this week!
P.S. I use the app Streaks to track my daily habits.
Nathan Barry
I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Hey Reader, What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? You’ve probably seen some version of this question before. It’s a good one, though sometimes the answer isn’t immediately obvious. That’s why I like Graham Weaver’s 8 questions for what to do with your life. Graham founded the private equity firm Alpine Investors, and he teaches at Stanford. In Chapter 2 of my upcoming book, The Ladders of Wealth, I credit him with a principle he shared with his MBA students called "worse first",...
Hey Reader, If I could solve only one thing in my business, that would have the biggest impact, what would that be? This is the question every great entrepreneur obsesses over. Rather than trying to do everything at once, you look for the bottleneck and focus on solving that. There’s a book called The Goal by an Israeli physicist named Eliyahu Goldratt. It’s a 1984 business novel that business systems nerds love. However if you’re not a business systems nerd you probably… won’t love it. It’s...
Hey Reader, Have you ever spent money on something and immediately felt guilty afterward? Will Guidara spends his money foolishly on purpose. And he thinks you should too. He once bought an entire barrel of whiskey and put it in his basement. He also put a skee-ball machine in the office. Is he going to get a monetary return on either of these things? No. But that’s kind of the point. He calls it the 95/5 rule: Manage your money and time like a maniac 95% of the time (no expense is too...