Each morning I am awakened gently by the sweet calls of downy-throated songbirds, welcoming me to a new day.

I arise and dine on a firm scramble of eggs laid at dawn by my cluck of heirloom chickens. I sip coffee from the rarest Kopi Luwak bean, harvested deep in the Sumatran jungle.

It's hand-picked.

By monkeys.

So after that … you can imagine that I flit to my desk, dip the nib of my fountain pen in its corner inkwell … and the insights spill out of me onto the page with the same intensity as the golden yolks of those heirloom eggs spread across my breakfast plate.¹

* * *

Only part of that is true.

We're tempted to think that writing is an art, that only a chosen lucky few can do it well. But that's an excuse—a rationalization that lets the lazy off the hook for being the communication equivalent of a couch potato: Flabby. Unmotivated. Inarticulate.

The truth is that key to becoming a better writer is to be a more productive one. The key to being a better writer is to write.

You'd think that great writers would have special inspiration or special rituals or the perfect conditions to boost their output—like what I tried to pass off as my routine above.

My coffee is not picked by a team of monkeys. I have zero chickens and no songbirds.

Only this part is true: I start each day by writing.

* * *

Many of the world's best-known writers stressed regular routines and schedules for writing. Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Maya Angelou, and Barbara Kingsolver kept (or keep, in Barbara's case) regular hours to cultivate creative rhythms.

They might've had certain quirks (Hemingway wrote standing up; Maya Angelou kept a room in a budget hotel to escape the distractions of her home life). But many kept schedules and routines that look as ordinary and predictable as those in anyone else's life.²

No fountain pen. No rare coffee beans.

On the next page is a peek at what the prolific Ben Franklin called his daily scheme.

Ben's schedule looks an awful lot like everyday work. Like routine. Like a conventional pattern you'd see from someone punching a clock in a factory, right?

Well … that's because it is. Becoming a better writer—working the muscle—takes some commitment to simply show up, not unlike the commitment I keep with my gym trainer, Dorothy.

Both writing and strength training can feel awkward and a little painful at first: I felt like a total poser wearing my athleisure to be more ath- and less -leisure. I felt idiotic grunting under the weight of barbells that seemed sized for a toddler.

Keep at it, even when it's uncomfortable. Even when you'd rather quit.

The key to being a better writer is to write.

“Write like crap if you have to. But write every day. Keep the streak alive,” says author and editor Beth Dunn.³

So what kind of prescription works?

Set aside time each day when you're freshest.

I'm freshest first thing in the morning, before distractions hijack my day.

But maybe you're not a morning person. Maybe you'd rather set aside time before bed. You've been living with yourself long enough to know what time of day would work for you, so I'll leave that in your hands.

Slow down. Every morning—before I crack open the spine of my laptop or scroll through Instagram—I write down things that happened the previous day: stories I heard, things that made me laugh, snippets of conversations, whatever I connected with or found inspiring.

I write longhand in a notebook, with a Sharpie. Old school. Analog.

In the back of my notebook, I keep a random list of things: half-baked blog post ideas, speech fragments, book concepts. It's like an Amazon wish list of things I might buy from the Content Store if such a thing as a Content Store existed.

I use a notebook because the paper/pen approach is slower. It forces a bit more reflection. It tunes you into your life. It documents things too easily lost. (The world comes at you fast.)

For the rest of my day, I'm tied to the ping of email and meetings; the addictive ease of the social media scroll; the ferocity of notifications. I spend an enormous amount of time reacting to all that. It can feel grim and hollow if there's nothing to balance it.

So that few minutes with a pen and paper is a reflective reset.

I suppose what I'm advocating here is journaling. But I dislike the word “journaling”—partly because I'm allergic to nouns forced into labor as verbs, and partly because I don't like the halo of preciousness around it. So let's just say I encourage you to reclaim your own daily Slow Moments, to make them a foundational habit.

Don't write a lot. Just write often. Don't worry about how much you're writing—just that you're writing.

From writer Jeff Goins: “Spending five hours on a Saturday writing isn't nearly as valuable as spending 30 minutes a day every day of the week. Especially when you're just getting started.”

I love how Jeff talks about why that daily part is important: He says habits “practiced once a week aren't habits at all. They're obligations.”

“And let's not kid ourselves here,” he adds. “If you're doing something once a week, it's probably only a matter of time before you stop doing it altogether.”⁴

There are no shortcuts to becoming a better writer. So show up and get to it. Daily.

Let's next look at how you motivate yourself to do that … even when you really aren't feeling it.