One Year On NotePD

One could argue the streak and the process are one in the same, but I don't think so. I look at the streak, or my place on the leaderboard, as nothing more than ways to gamify the process. The process is the habit of consistently writing ideas every day. It's something I must do every day, like brushing me teeth and drinking water. It has no definite end-goal. The goal is the process.

Preview

I keep all of my lists in Evernote, so I was able to export them and then drop them in a word cloud generator. I removed all numbers, special characters, and stop words.

10. someone - 227 count

9. work - 240 count

8. going - 251 count

7. just - 278 count

6. things - 336 count

5. day - 361 count

4. life - 388 count

3. people - 493 count

2. time - 511 count

1. one - 556 count

Occasionally I find it challenging to share anything too controversial. I don't have extreme positions on anything, but there are a handful of things I hesitate to share. As much as I say it's not good to let other people's judgments matter, they still affect me at times. Working on this is a continual process.

When I joined NotePD, I had just ran a 50K in Portland (https://notepd.com/idea/10-life-lessons-i-learned-from-running-my-16th-ultra-marathon-earlier-this-week-1906) in which I aggravated a couple of old heal and ankle injuries (a recurring theme for me this last year).

Since I was injured I found myself with some extra time so I decided to look for a new creative outlet. I heard James talking about NotePD a few times on his podcast, so I decided to sit down and take a look at it.

At the same time, I created a basic website on which I expected to post regular articles as well as promote my freelance writing services (which I no longer do). I posted a handful of times, but ultimately I let the website languish to the point where I just took it down. Now I'm re-thinking that decision. I'm thinking that I could use some of my idea lists as launch pads for more frequent articles.

There are so many smart people here. I hesitate to start listing names because I'll inadvertently leave someone out, but just know that if we've interacted in even the smallest of ways then I greatly admire you.

I'm not against it. It's fine. But it's not human and it's not James, so when it tells personal anecdotes in the comments or on idea lists...it's just a little weird.

I'm sure it'll comment on this after I post it.

It'd be fascinating to know the topics/ideas in which we're all most interested. It's also a great way to crowdsource ideas for projects.

To be honest, most days the ideas just some right out. Some topics I struggle with, but mostly I don't find it as challenging as I did early on. So I take that as I'm more creative now, but really - how do I know? I can't measure it. And what does that mean?

I'm surprised this site hasn't grown to a much larger user base at this point (maybe it has and most of them aren't that active). But that's okay with me, as it feels a little more intimate. It's not a "big box" social media platform like Twitter, and I like that. It's like talking with a cocktail party full of really bright, cool people.

See you tomorrow for Day 366!