Narrowing What You Want
Recently I was looking for an apartment. I went to Craigslist and narrowed down to a very specific area on the map, price range, etc. There were only 4 results of which 1 was viable for me. I visited the apartment and rented it immediately.
This is not how I would have done things when I moved to San Francisco 6 years ago. I used to keep all filters and options open, roving and scrolling thru hundreds of pins on the map. I enjoyed wasting time, just like I still do when ordering on Doordash or browsing Netflix. Without clear intentions, I wait for inspiration to strike.
Waiting for inspiration is a bad strategy, and it's useful for me to detect when I enter this kind of complacent state. It usually means I'm simply not ready for the task at hand. If I was actually hungry, I'd click the first thing with the shortest delivery time.
When we were recruiting for our team at Shuffle, my cofounder watched me use Linkedin to search for team members. He had one piece of feedback: "Andy, you've got hundreds of search results. Can we use the filters to get to 5 or maybe 10, then after you reach out to decide those people aren't right, broaden to 20, and so on?"
The same principle applies to writing blog posts. I jot down notes and thoughts sometimes, but I only sit down to write when I have an idea to flesh out. It has to grab me. Then the writing can happen pretty fast; usually there's no issue with writer's block at all.
Sometimes it's slow, sure, I'm still learning. But I've been practicing for over half a decade now with hundreds of published posts, and for the most part I'm happy with my pace. I just had to get out all my bad ideas. I don't think any good writer would tell you they are spectacular in their own eyes. They're just experienced.
In the past, I mostly blogged for myself. My posts were half-baked. In my mind, they're very much public journal entries, personal reflections. I'm surprised anyone subscribes... hahaha
Although I still write for myself to a large extent, I now also write for others. I'm trying to teach an idea and ask a question to the reader with each post.
For example, what do you think of this framing around ordering food or watching TV online? How does it compare for you, leisure time vs job or apartment hunting? I'd love to see your comments and discussion on this topic!
Here's my conclusion: to know what you want, or to navigate the world effectively, it's a good strategy to accumulate experience. And perhaps write publicly about your experiences, just for yourself, in order to properly talk about it. Internalizing new ideas then acting on them takes lots of time and effort! Learning is hard.
Eventually I suspect you'll have something special to say. After you work through all your own thoughts and quirks, you'll find your people and a narrow purpose to really sink your teeth into. Then you'll start to inspire yourself as well as others.
