What the Fran

Notes Projects Links Posts

• 18 Dec, 2025 *

Mikko’s post, Productivity is long term is a thoughtful meditation on taking the long view:

zoom in close enough, and you’re only able to see whether you’re busy or not. You can see the hours you’ve put in and the hours you did not. But you can’t see what ultimately comes out of it.

Also, Imperfect put together a bunch of posts on practice across timescales.

This I think is what people mean about process. Trusting the process.

My grandparents were big on hiking. Don’t look for the summit, my grandma would tell us. Take the next step. If you keep putting one foot in front of the other you’ll end up there. The next word, the next brushstroke, the next chord.

Big projects feel like that. If I told myself I had to write every day for five years I’d be instantly overwhelmed. But I can write today. A whole series of todays. And before I know it I’m pushing six years.

I fully understand people don’t have time to write (or practice, or draw, or exercise, or whatever it is) every day. Or don’t want to. (You Don’t Have to Write Every Day to Be a Real Writer.) That’s not the point really. The point is: don’t underestimate the impact of a hundred words. Of a sentence. A brushstroke. Tiny amounts accrue. Over a year, and longer. They become something.

Since I started this nearly-six-year streak the two worst things that have ever happened to me, well, happened. Not only did I write a sentence on the worst days of my life but sometimes I wrote more. The writing itself helped me through those days. Putting one foot in front of the other.

Tiny amounts become large amounts. They also become proof that you can do the thing. That you can prevail against everything else the universe throws at you.

#links