The biggest impediment in the way of everything we don’t achieve is the lack of courage to actually do it. Heck, we can’t even fail if we don’t attempt to do it.

When it comes to blogging and working online, most of us tend to be passive learners. It’s easy to read all the information and feel all wise and knowledgeable, but any information that is not put to any use is, well, useless.

In fact, I read two kinds of books/blogs/anything readable. 1) That is practically useful. 2) That is absolutely useless but has high entertainment value, e.g. fiction.

The problem starts when I read something that I mean to read for its practical value, but instead I reduce its value to mere entertainment. Reading information gives me the satisfaction that I’ve done something useful, but if I do nothing to incorporate this new information into my blogging/webmastering activities, I might as well have read another one of those John Grisham’s legal thrillers.

So here’s the best nugget of advice anyone can ever give you to transform your life: Try all of your ideas, and don’t be afraid of failure, for if there is anything worse than failure, it’s not even trying.

If you are held back by the excuse that you are not yet ready, you’ll never be ready. There’s always more to learn, isn’t it? And what you learn from experience far outweighs what you learn from passively observing. If you want to know how to swim, you’ll have to read the instructions manual. But if you want to swim, you have to take the plunge once!

Oh and I’ve been thinking of writing smaller (Seth Godin style) posts, and see, I’ve done it!

Update: Oh scary! Many bloggers have covered different angles of the same point today: Do what’s important and do it now! Brian recounts how he went through a life-threatening accident to realize he needed to do what he loved. Dave talks about the importance of spending time with people you love and urges us to do it right now. Meryl gives tips on balancing your work and personal lives by, again, doing what’s more important rather than what you mindlessly do.

Do you have any insights to share with us too?

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Last week I wrote about different full screen text editors to choose from and (sort of) promised that I’ll expand on why writing in full screen is at least worth trying.

Well, there is no better time for it than now.

So, what are the advantages of writing in a full screen editor with no formatting options at all, when we have all kinds of word processors with the latest bells and whistles at our command?

The question would be only fair if you were writing a formal application for a new job. But here, we are talking about creative writing, and this beast is not easy to tame.

Most writing is creative writing as it requires you to choose your words and arrange your sentences creatively (not in poetic sense, mind you). And we all know, it is impossible to be creative without being fully focussed on our thoughts.

What’s great about a full screen editor is that it instantly removes distracting thoughts from your mind and connects you to your most important thoughts by clearing the writing field of visual distractions.

When typing in other editors with all other windows and toolbars and icons peeping into your peripheral vision, it’s all too easy to lose your train of thought and waste your brain’s energy processing other annoying matters such as why was your girl friend behaving so strangely last night!

You see, our mind is a whiny little baby. It uses up most of its energy worrying about frivolous things that need least of your attention right now. And ignores any demands of concentrating on the task at hand.

When there’s a lot of stuff going on around you when you need to concentrate on a creative task, it mucks around for something to interrupt your concentration, and as soon as it’s found something, all that has gone wrong in your life seems to run like a film before your eyes.

This, or something similar is bound to happen to you if you write in a noisy, distracting environment. A screen full of colors, toolbars, and windows is the sort of visual noise you can’t afford to have around when writing.

Writing on a black screen with only your thoughts materializing on it is truly a blissful experience.

But what about formatting?

I know the kind of perfectionists we all have become. If we don’t write perfect content with words bolded out and lists nicely bulleted right as we put them down, we consider ourselves to be lousy and incapable writers.

If you write with this approach in mind, I seriously ask you to reconsider your approach.

If you want to change your approach and become a really efficient writer, take some time to read this post that I wrote earlier.

Stephen King, a famous fiction writer, puts it more beautifully than I ever can:

Put away your dictionary, your encyclopedias, your World Almanac, and your thesaurus. Better yet, throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket. The only things creepier than a thesaurus are those little paperbacks college students too lazy to read the assigned novels buy around exam time. Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right – and breaking your train of thought and the writer’s trance in the bargain – or just spell it phonetically and correct it later. Why not? Did you think it was going to go somewhere? And if you need to know the largest city in Brazil and you find you don’t have it in your head, why not write in Miami, or Cleveland? You can check it … but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don’t do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.

Customizing your full screen editor for best results

Here’s a screenshot of my customized Dark Room.

• The page is 600px wide, centered, and with margins set to 10px. This gives the page a more ‘roomy’ feeling which is helpful for concentration.
• The general background is black which is least distracting of all colors.
• The page background is a dark gray with white text on it so it doesn’t pierce my eyes.
• The font is Times New Roman because I’m still used to reading Serif fonts in print. The more familiarity = the less distraction.

But this is not the end of all configurations. Do what suits you best.

If you have used a full screen editor for writing before, please share your experience in comments.

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Full screen text editor is probably the best thing I’ve discovered since I started blogging.

When I open up my full screen text editor, my creativity quadruples and ideas seem to flow from every inch of my brain.

A few days ago, Maki wrote about a full screen text editor called Dark Room and explained how it helped him concentrate better and come up with great content. Well, I needed no convincing. On some subconscious level, I badly wanted a writing app like this. I was sold.

Since then, I’ve been writing everything that needs concentration in a full screen text editor. And the results are amazing.

How to write best in full screen is a subject for another post. For now, here’s a list of 13 full screen text editors that’ll help you stay focused on writing. Take your pick.

Recommended

1. Dark Room – Dark Room is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. Unlike standard word processors that focus on features, Dark Room is just about you and your text.

2. Q10 – Q10 will clean your kitchen, walk your dog and make excellent coffee. Well, not really. But it’s really good as a full-screen text editor.

3. JDarkRoom – JDarkRoom is a popular, simple full-screen text file editor with none of the usual bells and whistles that might distract you from the job in hand. If you are writing a novel, essay, thesis or just need to be able to concentrate on your writing, then JDarkRoom may help you.

Others

4. WriteMonkey – Zenware for full screen distraction free creative writing. No whistles and bells, just empty screen, you and your words. WriteMonkey is light, fast, and perfectly handy for those who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter but live in modern times.

5. WestEdit – WestEdit is a full screen, old-school text editor and typewriter. No fuss, no distractions – just you and your text.

6. Jer’s Novel Writer (Mac only – a word processor with full screen mode) – Jer’s Novel Writer is a relatively simple word processor with extra features to support large creative writing projects.

7. CopyWrite (Mac only – has full-screen mode) – CopyWrite is a project manager for writers of all kinds. Rather than focus on formatting and layout, CopyWrite stands apart in its project-oriented approach.

8. PyRoom – Writeroom is a full-screen text editor, without buttons, menu, formatting, so you can focus on writing, and only writing. It’s only for Mac, and costs USD 24.95. PyRoom is its clone, written in Python + GTK, Free and free.

9. RubyRoom – Rubyroom is a full-screen text editor. Full screen gives you a complete workspace for your text, and nothing else. No IM windows popping up, no more “you got mail” small animations on the background that take away your concentration.

Web-based

10. DarkCopy – DarkCopy is a simple, full-screen text editor for distraction free writing.

11. Writer – The internet typewriter. Has an option to switch to full screen mode.

12. WordPress 2.5 – WordPress 2.5 has an option to expand the write area to full screen. Very handy if you prefer to write in the familiar WordPress post editor.

And finally, the one that started it all!

13. WriteRoom (Mac only – commercial) – For people who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter, but live in the digital world. WriteRoom is a full-screen writing environment. Unlike the cluttered word processors you’re used to, WriteRoom is just about you and your text.

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Ideas are strange gems. They don’t do so much as blink when you concentrate, and they shine with all the glory when you don’t care.

It’s never easy to coax an idea out of its hiding. In fact, the more you try, the farther you drive it away. So you might think that the less you try the more likely you are to happen upon new ideas. Is that right?

To some extent, yes. If you try too hard, the ideas become elusive like a fox. And you know, if your creativity is the engine that keeps you going, the ideas are the fuel that keeps the engine going.

So we reach an interesting, albeit confusing, dilemma. We have been told that thinking gets our creativity going, but then most of our experiences suggest otherwise. We tend to be most creative when we are not thinking, right?

Well, not really. When you think you are not thinking, you are thinking more vigorously than usual. When you are taking a bath, your brain produces more energy, power, and ideas. Not because you are getting clean, but rather, because you are not making an effort to think. The thinking happens on its own.

You might notice that in above sentences, I make it look like as though you and your thinking were two separate entities. After all, thinking can not happen on its own because it’s a part of you. It happens because you let it happen. Or in other words, your thinking is what you are.

I’d disagree. You’ve got two personalities in your head. One is creative, full of imagination and ideas. The other one holds a calculator in its hands, counting and measuring everything, drawing logical inferences from sensory inputs, and relaying the data to other parts of the brain.

Scientists call the latter conscious, and the former subconscious.

But we call the latter the inner critic, the cynical old fool, and a grumpy nay-sayer. This is the guy that thinks creativity is bad for you. It thinks indulging in deep and imaginative thoughts is hazardous for your survival.

We don’t blame it for being such a cynic. It has to process so much data and calculate it all to precision, it hardly has time for such tomfoolery as creative imagination.

Back to the point, when we think hard and try to be creative, our conscious rules out our efforts as unworthy of its time. Because of our brain’s limited capacity to process the data at any given point in time, it’s almost always overloaded with thoughts, memories, emotions, and countless other things, and so unable to please our whims at all times.

And since conscious comes before the subconscious, it refuses to take a backseat. To conscious, there are more pressing matters to be dealt with at any point in time.

However, there are situations when the conscious takes a break and goes in the background. And that’s when your subconscious has full control over your thoughts. This is the time when you feel light, happy, in a trance-like state, and full of creative juice.

You step into such a condition during a shower because:

• You are alone so you don’t have to feel self-conscious.
• You consciously allow yourself to take a break from the usual routine of work.
• Taking a bath doesn’t require you to consciously monitor yourself and your surroundings. You have programmed yourself to take a bath, so you simply run an automated script to administer the proceedings while you shut off all other thoughts and dive into the subconscious.

Likewise, anything else you do that’s marked as a break from the work and other worries of life, triggers the creative mode in your mind. Be it eating, driving, or strolling with your pet dog, such activities take you into a creative haven.

On the other hand, when you are in an active mode, it’s far harder to slip into this fissure in an otherwise flat surface of conscious. Your inner critic will try everything it can to stop you from giving your subconscious temporary control over your thoughts.

Therefore, the only secret to be creative, and to think and come up with great ideas without making an effort is to take a break. Allow yourself to ignore everything else, blank out your conscious slate, and shut off all the data sensors.

It’s somewhat akin to self-hypnotism and meditation, but you are not required to learn any specific techniques to slip into your subconscious. You learn everything while you blank out.

So next time you need to be creative, go take a shower!

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Know your whys and hows?

If your blog posts take any amount of thinking to complete, you must do the thinking before you write. This brief ensures that you don’t miss any important points, and that you actually know your subject matter before you can explain it to your readers.

By putting some time aside to answer some basic questions about your articles (very briefly), you’ll create a winner every time you write.

Try answering these questions for your next post idea:

• What is the main point of this article?
• What style should it be written in?
• What does it aim to achieve?
• What problem does it solve, if any?
• What do I already know about this subject?

• Who will read this?
• Who will benefit from this?
• Who will it influence?

• Why will anyone care to read this?
• Why am I writing this?
• Why is it better than other similar articles?
• Why is it different?

• How can I improve this?
• How will this benefit my readers?
• How will readers respond to this article?

Or simply memorize the following gem from Rudyard Kipling:

“I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.”

If you think your time would be better spent on writing the actual thing than fussing over some silly questions, put yourself in your readers pajamas and think again.

You mind will be overflowing with ideas, and your fingers springing into action after you know what you really want to say. The writing will come much more easily because you’ll be clear about the direction you’ll take. And you’ll save more time than if you write unprepared.

Above all, you’ll be in more control and, hence, more motivated to explore the subject.

Take the test yourself. Reflect on the subject next time you write something, and see if it makes the writing a more rewarding experience!

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Starting from today, we’ll hold a community discussion every week where all of you’ll have a chance to participate and share your wisdom regarding the discussion subject of the week.

The very next post will feature the best reply as well as all the comments left in the discussion thread! (reminds you of Yahoo! answers?)

The purpose of this discussion would be to increase community participation, find answers/solutions to difficult blogging questions/issues, and reward the regular readers of Blogging Bits by featuring their valuable comments in a separate post.

Here are today’s questions:

1. Do you use to-do lists to stay organized, and do you think it helps you stay focused on blogging tasks and other day-to-day activities?
2. What software do you recommend for keeping to-do lists?

Let the discussion commence!

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But before I tell you about my blogging goals, let me explain why setting your goals is the most important task you’ll ever undertake.

Ambiguity, doubt, and uncertainty are anti-productivity. In fact, they eat up your confidence and make you incompetent.

Let me give you an example: Have you ever waited to hear a news so badly that you felt like losing control? That was the result of uncertainty.

Another example: Have you ever doubted about an outcome so much that you almost ended up exhausted and frustrated? That, of course, was the result of doubt.

And so on.

We humans don’t like to be uncertain. We want to learn about every possible detail of an event, and every bit of knowledge of what is to come in future.

Certainty, on the other hand, has opposite effect on our attitude. When we are certain about an outcome of an event, we feel euphoric and confident. When certain, I sometimes feel like walking on the air (light and free from earth’s gravitational pull).

There is a scientific reason behind such an elated condition. When we are certain, happy, and in control, our brain releases endorphins, neurotransmitters that make us extremely satisfied and happy.

An endorphins-induced state of confidence puts us in the highest productivity mode. I am sure you can think of moments when you felt absolutely confident and certain, ready to undertake any kind of task.

The point is that you can control the release of endorphins by setting yourself clear goals. Don’t you want to remain on a productivity “high” all your life?

Of course, you do!

Having clear, concrete, and measurable goals not only makes you ultra-productive because of the endorphins-induced euphoria of certainty, but it also makes you a more responsible person. You feel obliged to achieve the goals you have set.

And what better time to set your goals than at the end of the year? (or rather, at the start of the year)

Here is an outline of my blogging goals in 2008:

1. Get at least 7000 subscribers
2. Earn part time income from my blog(s)
3. Start more blogs

These are my main goals. And if I break them down into smaller, less daunting goals, there will be too many to be of any interest to you.

Now do yourself a big favor, and set yourself clear, achievable goals now! Because, by tomorrow, your mind may become too hazy – thanks to your constant uncertainty – to make any clear resolutions.

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Unlike what you may think, creative thinking is not solely for other people.

You can also be creative. The only requirement is that you make an effort to be creative.

First, let’s get the definition of creativity out of our way.

According to Dictionary.com, creativity means: the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.

This is spot on. Only I’d replace transcend with use.

People always think that others are creative and they are not. They think highly creative people possess extra-ordinary thinking qualities that transcend the normal way of thinking.

While I agree that creative people go beyond the traditional way of thinking, they do not have superhuman qualities to help them become creative.

Creative people train themselves to be creative.

Just like any other new way of thinking requires you to learn it first, thinking creatively also requires you to learn to think creatively.

Ditch the traditional way of thinking

Are you caught up in a mundane way of living? Do you follow a predetermined routine in your day-to-day activities? Have you ever thought you can change the way things happen to you?

If your answer to first two questions is yes, and a NO to the third one, you probably haven’t tried to be creative.

What do you do when you feel thirsty? You probably go and drink water. Problem is, drinking water is not a very creative idea. When you feel thirsty, your brain decides for you that you need water. It’s an automatic response that you instantly accept.

Now if you feel thirsty and think to yourself “Hmm.. I drink water whenever I feel thirsty, let’s try something new today“, you reject your brain’s ready-made suggestion and switch to a creative mode of thinking. You weigh your options and decide that you’ll get yourself a coke to quench your thirst.

There. You just ditched a conventional way of thinking and went through a creative process of thinking to get yourself an alternate thirst-quencher.

If you start taking coke every once in a while to satisfy your thirst, it too becomes an unoriginal idea. How about you try another brand of coke that tastes differently?

See, when you want to be creative, sky is the limit.

How to become a creative blogger

Once we accept that creativity and innovation, in most cases, is looking at traditional ideas from a different angle, or building upon unoriginal ideas to come up with original ones, it becomes a lot more easier to apply creative thinking to every aspect of life.

Blogging is writing, and writing is a creative process. If you keep churning out same kinds of posts everyday, your blog will become boring.

Before you write your next post, ask yourself how you can write it differently. Be innovative. Every other blogger is writing like you do, so why will your visitors subscribe to your feed?

Two examples of creative blogging has just come to my mind.

1. On 99% of blogs in the world, a blogger writes a post and readers comment, addressing the blogger directly. It doesn’t matter whether blogger responds back or not. The conversation is over as soon as commenter leaves the comment. There is no back and forth dialog. No exchange of thoughts.

Skellie, who is a creative blogger and likes to think outside the box, didn’t accept this typical way of holding conversations in the comments. So she put on her creative hat and came up with a solution. She now dedicates a whole post to her readers every week, where she asks her readers a thought-provoking question and encourages them not only to hold a dialog with her, but also engage in a conversation with one another.

To ensure that her new idea works, she selects a reader with the best comment and most active participation in the discussion and features him/her in her next post.

Result? Go see for yourself.

2. Maki, whose whole blog is one big collection of creative ideas, has recently started a new kind of post on weekends that he calls “Weekend Media”. It’s an innovative idea because weekend media post is not just another post with a bunch of advice. In every weekend media post, Maki features books, movies, documentaries, and other similar media, and finds a connection between the featured media and some aspect of internet marketing.

As a result, he has found a way to step outside his niche, while keeping his new posts relevant to his current topic of Dosh Dosh. So even though he is attracting more readers to his blog, he is making sure he does not scare away his current readership.

Do Skellie and Maki possess super-human qualities? Of course not. They are just like you. Only they are not satisfied with the conventional way of blogging, and are willing to try new things.

So go try something new. Here are a few ideas for you:

• Writing long posts? Try shorter ones.
• Writing posts in the same format? Change it. If you use headings to assert every points, use bullet points with bold openings.
• Covering the same old topics? Cover new topics that are similar to your current set of topics.
• Been targeting StumbleUpon traffic? Target Digg, Reddit, or Slashdot.
• Been linking to the same bloggers over and over? Find new bloggers and link to them.

Keep building your own list.

Whenever you do something differently from the way it’s usually done, or how you have been doing it for ages, you take a creative step.

Trust me, you are always being creative to little degrees in your routine life. In all the decisions you make and problems you solve, you unknowingly stimulate your creative neurons.

The next step is to use your creative power consciously in whatever you do.

So what are you waiting for? Leave me a creative comment now!

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We tend to put off what we consider to be important, and we put it off because we think of it as a daunting task. The root of procrastination, hence, I believe lies in the fear of not being able to complete the important task.

Let’s suppose the most daunting task for you everyday is to produce a blog post. Chances are, you put off writing the post to the last possible moment. And sometimes you don’t even write it.

The worse thing about procrastination is that when you put off a task to a later time, you can’t do anything else in the mean time either!

Why does it happen?

Quite simply, your mind remains occupied by the thoughts of the delayed task, and you give yourself continuous mental torture until you complete the task.

I’ve written about overcoming laziness before, and the best way I could find to do it was “Just do it”.

This, indeed, kills procrastination. But the question still remains: How do you do it? Because when you are procrastinating, you simply can’t “do it”. This is the problem!

I hear you my friends. And here is a good news: you can pull off this feat with only a bit of discipline!

Do the task you’re likely to put off first every morning

Why do we procrastinate? Because we allow ourselves to immerse in other worthless activities and slowly withdraw into a passive mode, where we can not do physical or mental hard work.

The trick to overcome such a condition is to not let this condition overcome you.

Our habits are even more deeply engraved in our minds than the temporary condition of laziness, so it’s just a matter of forming such a habit that can redeem us from the curse of procrastination.

Try this recipe: Do your most important task first every morning, and discipline yourself to do so every morning for at least couple of months.

Ingredients: Discipline, Determination, and a deep desire to succeed.

Since you are a blogger, and I am supposed to be talking to you, here is what you should do: Write a post everyday right after turning on the computer, even before checking your email and stats. If you need some inspiration, OK go check your feed reader. But remember, you are checking your feeds for inspiration, so don’t click away. You’ll be lost in the blogosphere before you realize.

Do it for a couple of months, and I assure you, you’ll develop a habit of writing a post the first thing after turning on your computer. You won’t even remember you used to procrastinate!

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It’s possible to improve the state of your blogging. In fact, it’s easy to take your blogging to the next level.

If you are like many bloggers (who sell their blog after discovering the “truth” about blogging) you’ll go through rough times. The thoughts of giving up will overwhelm you. It happens to you because, in your thinking, you are not improving enough to justify spending time on your blog.

I assure you, almost every new blogger is attacked by pessimism, if it’s of any consolation to you. But those of us who reject to bow to negative thoughts, succeed. The rest sell their blogs and run away.

If you don’t let negative thoughts get in your way, they will lose hope and stop pestering you.

But how?

Write everyday

Consistency is the key. Write often so your writing muscles don’t stiffen up. Just as your legs get stiff when you get up after sitting for too long, your writing muscles also refuse to flex if you don’t warm them up often.

You don’t have to post everyday to write everyday. Write only the bits you think up during the day. Or write small parts of a large post you are working on. Heck, write whatever comes to your mind. Just write, write, and write. This will keep you from getting lazy and ultimately blaming your failure on some odd circumstance.

Stick to a schedule

Guess what highly effective blogger do to succeed? They develop a schedule and follow it diligently.

Not following a schedule can land you in unorganized and uncreative way of life. If you keep on browsing the web, stumbling on StumbleUpon, and adding friends on Facebook while your blog gets stale, you seriously need to discipline yourself.

In fact, it’s not that important to comment on other blogs and network with other bloggers if you don’t write content on your own blog first. Your blog is your first priority. Everything else comes second.

Look at what you have achieved, not what you haven’t

If you feel like giving up because your blog hasn’t lived up to your expectations, it’s time to re-adjust your perspective.

If you look from the moment you started your blog onward, you’ll remember many glorious moments. Do you remember the day when you got an unexpected surge in your traffic? Do you remember how it felt when your got your first tackback?

Those were all important milestones in your blogging journey. You can only move forward one step at a time. If you try to gallop too often, you’ll fall face down, only to find you don’t have the courage to stand up again.

Think positive. Is the glass half empty or half full?

Read the bloggers who have succeeded

Everyone needs some motivation once in a while. A confirmation that what we are doing is indeed right. Weird but true.

If you feel you are lacking motivation, read the successful bloggers inside and outside your niche. See how they are still as passionate about blogging as they were at start.

You think they are big and you are not? Newsflash: They started out as small bloggers the same as you, only they didn’t give up midway. And if you want to follow in their footsteps, you’d better keep on trudging ahead as well.

Get away from computer

Online life may be jolly good, but sometimes it can be pretty lonely and depressing away from the rest of people around you.

So what you need is a break. Get away from the damn computer. It’s filling your head with negative thoughts.

Go out with your friends, see how beautiful and welcoming life is. Trust me, you’ll come back with a renewed spirit. I can attest to that myself.

Simply put, if you ever feel like giving up, don’t make quick and rash decisions. Such thoughts are an indication that you are probably not doing something right. So instead of giving up, pinpoint the problem and figure out ways to eliminate it.

Your thoughts?

Have you gone through any “I’m gonna quit” moments?

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