I should say upfront that this isn’t going to be a dramatic story. No life-changing transformation. No moment where everything clicked and suddenly I became a disciplined, prolific writer who wakes up at 5 AM and produces thousands of words before breakfast.
It’s smaller than that. Almost embarrassingly small.
But that’s kind of the point.
For years, I tried building a writing routine. I read all the advice. Write every day. Set a word count goal. Protect your writing time. Treat it like a job.
And I’d try. I really would. I’d commit to writing 500 words a day, or an hour every morning, or three pages before I could check my phone. It would work for a week, sometimes two. Then life would interrupt. I’d miss a day. Then another. And the whole system would collapse.
Each failure made the next attempt harder. I started to believe I just wasn’t the kind of person who could maintain a writing habit. Some people had discipline. I apparently didn’t.
Then, almost by accident, I stumbled onto something different.
I started opening my document every day. That’s it. Just opening it.
Not writing. Not hitting a word count. Not even reading what I’d written before. Just opening the file so it was there on my screen.
I know. It sounds ridiculous. Too small to matter.
But here’s what happened.
Most days, once the document was open, I’d write something. Not because I forced myself to. Just because I was already there. The file was in front of me. My cursor was blinking. And it felt stranger to close it without typing anything than to add a sentence or two.
Some days, a sentence turned into a paragraph. A paragraph turned into a page. Occasionally I’d realize I’d been writing for an hour without meaning to.
Other days, I’d open the document, sit with it for thirty seconds, and close it again. And that was fine. I’d still kept my commitment. I’d still shown up.
The key, I think, is that the habit was small enough to be almost impossible to fail at. Even on my worst days, my busiest days, my most exhausted days, I could open a document. It took ten seconds. There was no resistance to overcome.
And because I never failed at it, I never had to start over. The streak just kept going. And something about that continuity changed my relationship with the work.
I’ve been trying to understand why this works when bigger commitments didn’t.
Part of it is just friction. A goal like “write 500 words” carries weight. There’s a standard to meet, a way to fail. Before I even start, some part of my brain is calculating whether I have the time, the energy, the ideas. And often the answer is no, not today, maybe tomorrow.
But “open the document” has almost no weight at all. My brain doesn’t bother resisting it. It’s too small to trigger the usual avoidance mechanisms.
There’s something else, though. Something about staying connected to the work.
Before this habit, I’d go days or weeks without touching a project. And every time I came back, there was this reorientation period. What was I writing about? Where did I leave off? What was I trying to do with this scene?
That friction made it easy to keep postponing. The longer I stayed away, the harder it felt to return. So I’d stay away longer. Which made it even harder.
Now, even on days when I don’t write anything, I’ve at least glanced at the project. I’ve kept it somewhere in my thoughts. The thread never fully breaks.
When I do sit down to write, I’m not starting cold. I’m continuing.
A few things shifted that I didn’t anticipate.
I stopped dreading writing. This surprised me. I used to feel this low-grade anxiety about my writing projects. Not quite guilt, but something like it. A constant awareness that I should be writing more, doing better, being more disciplined.
That feeling has mostly faded. Because I am showing up, in my tiny way, every day. The habit is so small that it doesn’t feel like a burden. And because it doesn’t feel like a burden, I actually want to do it.
I started finishing things. Not every project. But more than before. I think it’s because I never fully abandon anything now. Even if I’m stuck on a story, I still open the document occasionally. I still keep it alive. And eventually, sometimes weeks later, I’ll open it and suddenly know what comes next.
My relationship with productivity changed. I used to measure my writing life by output. Words per day. Pages per week. And I was always falling short.
Now I measure by consistency. Did I show up today? Yes? Then today was a success. Even if I wrote nothing. Even if I just opened the file and closed it.
That reframe took a lot of pressure off. And weirdly, I think I write more now than when I was trying to hit word counts. Not because I’m pushing harder. Because I’m not pushing at all.
I want to be clear about what I’m not claiming here.
This isn’t a productivity hack. I’m not writing ten thousand words a week or finishing a novel every few months. My output is modest. Some days it’s barely anything.
This also isn’t about discipline in the traditional sense. I’m not gritting my teeth and forcing myself to show up. The habit is so small that it doesn’t require willpower. That’s the whole point.
And this isn’t a universal solution. Maybe it wouldn’t work for you at all. Maybe your brain needs a bigger goal to feel motivated. Maybe opening a document without writing would just feel pointless.
I’m only saying it worked for me. After years of failed routines and abandoned commitments, this one stuck. And I’m still a little surprised by that.
In case it’s helpful, here’s what the habit feels like in practice.
I keep my current project file on my desktop. Not in a folder. Right there where I’ll encounter it every time I open my laptop.
At some point during the day, usually in the morning but not always, I double-click the file. It opens. My words are there. My cursor blinks at me.
That’s the habit. That’s the commitment fulfilled.
What happens next varies. Sometimes I scroll through what I wrote yesterday. Sometimes I add a sentence. Sometimes I sit there for a minute, thinking, and then close the file because I don’t have anything right now.
I don’t judge myself for the days when nothing happens. They’re part of the process. They keep the connection alive.
And I try not to make it bigger than it is. The moment I start thinking okay, now that I’m here, I should really write at least a paragraph, I feel that old resistance creeping back. So I let the habit stay small. I trust that the writing will happen when it’s ready to happen.
Most of the time, it does.
I’ve been hesitant to write about this because it feels like it shouldn’t work. All the advice about building a writing practice emphasizes commitment, goals, accountability. Things with structure and weight.
And here I am saying: just open the document.
But maybe that’s exactly why it works for me. Because it’s so far below the threshold of resistance that my brain never gets a chance to talk me out of it.
I think there’s something to be said for habits that sneak under the radar. That don’t announce themselves as important or demanding. That just quietly become part of the day without making a big deal about it.
The big dramatic commitments are appealing. They feel serious. They feel like something a real writer would do.
But I’ve made a lot of big dramatic commitments that lasted two weeks and then evaporated. This tiny, almost-nothing habit is still going. And I think staying power matters more than intensity.
I’m not going to tell you this will work for you. I have no idea if it will.
But if you’ve struggled with writing habits the way I have, if you’ve tried the word counts and the morning routines and the accountability systems and watched them all collapse, maybe it’s worth experimenting with something smaller.
Smaller than you think makes sense. Small enough that it feels almost silly.
Open the document. Notice what you wrote last time. Close it if you want to.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
See what happens over a few weeks. See if the connection to your work starts to feel different. See if you find yourself writing more, not because you’re supposed to, but because you’re already there.
Or don’t. Find your own version. Something that works for your brain, your life, your particular flavor of resistance.
The point isn’t the specific habit. The point is finding something sustainable. Something you can actually do, day after day, without burning out or giving up.
I’m curious whether anyone else has found small habits that made a quiet difference. Not the dramatic ones. Not the productivity systems. The tiny things that somehow stuck.
Or maybe you’re skeptical. Maybe this sounds too simple to matter. I get that. I would’ve thought the same thing a few years ago.
Either way, I’d like to hear about it. What’s worked for you? What hasn’t? What are you still trying to figure out?
