7 Ways to Build a Writing Habit

How to write more consistently.

3 min readJun 6

A writing habit changes how you feel about writing.

The more I’ve written, the more I’ve learned about the power of consistently writing every day. My writing habit forces me to come up with ideas to write about.

While I’m far from perfect, I’ve learned a lot about writing consistently.

1. Start small

You don’t need to write a novel next week. You don’t even need to write a 500+ word blog post.

Write a few sentences. Describe your day in a journal. Share an opinion on social media. Write a page of that novel you’ve dreamed about writing.

Start small. Building a writing habit isn’t a contest. It’s consistency. It’s about doing a little work each day to keep that consistency.

2. Start With Energy

Building a writing habit is easier when you write about the topics that interest you.

Avoid writing about topics that you think people want to read. Write about the topics you want to read because you’ll find more energy.

3. Start In the Right Environment

One of James Clear’s keys to building a habit is to be in the right environment.

I love this story of how soldiers broke their heroin addiction in Vietnam.

“In Vietnam, soldiers spent all day surrounded by cues triggering heroin use: it was easy to access, they were engulfed by the constant stress of war, they built friendships with fellow soldiers who were also heroin users, and they were thousands of miles from home. Once a soldier returned to the United States, though, he found himself in an environment devoid of those triggers. When the context changed, so did the habit.”