Startups are fun. They are the experiences that everybody wants but only a few have the liberty to enjoy it. And every experience has its own ups and downs. A startup founder's journey is no different. In fact, if it's your first startup, chances are that you'll be facing lots of downs before that ride reverses its direction.

In these times of pandemic and amid uncertainties, we all need some way to keep ourselves charged and motivated. Out of all the things that you can rely upon, I think writing is one of the best exercises one can practice to be self-motivated and energetic.

Benefits of writing

  1. Frees up the mind of unnecessary thoughts: So many things going on in our life and sometimes they can affect us during our business hours. When we start writing our thoughts, it helps to clean our minds and increase our focus towards the task in hand.
  2. Makes you happier. It's stress buster: Stress kills ideas. Writing for me is like a stress buster. It makes me happier. It is like meditation that makes me feel lighter and happier. I think you should also try it if you are stressed about anything or maybe just for fun.
  3. Allows you to share your knowledge with the world: You know a lot of things that you may have experienced over time. It may be about your work experience, your relationships, your learnings, your previous job, your startup struggle. The list is endless. Writing gives you a feeling of completeness. A feeling of returning something to a world, which gave us too much to survive, in our own way.
  4. Allows you to share your vision with the world: It may sound like an extension to the previous point. However with very little difference. Do you sometimes feel that the people around you don't understand you? The reason is probably that they don't know you (enough?) (or you don't know them?). Why not share your vision in your own words about how you see things the way you do? Unless you express, who cares what goes on in your mind.
  5. Expands your network and lets you meet the like-minded people: When you write something, some readers feel the same as you do. Those who like to do the same things as you do. Who think just like you. Writing allows you to connect with those people and learn and exchange experiences with each other.
  6. Improves your vocabulary: No need to emphasize on this. The more you write, the more you learn about the language you are writing in. Not only it helps in writing, but it also betters your verbal communication.
  7. Improves your memory: Jot down something that you want to remember will make sure that you'll be able to recall it quickly if compared otherwise. Remember when your teacher asked you to write 'I will not do it again' 100 times when you drew her funny picture on the blackboard?
  8. Documents your memories: We keep living our lives and with aging the memory starts fading. Won't it be the best way to preserve your memories and keep them available for your children to see how you lived your life and what was your struggle like when you were trying to make 5 figures?
  9. Helps in your decision-making abilities: When you are writing, you are documenting your successes and failures. You can then introspect what went right or wrong and helps you make better decisions in the future.
  10. Allows you to talk to yourself: This is last from my side and probably the most important thing of the lot. We can talk to everybody in the world. We can lie to anybody in the world. Even our parents and spouse. But we can't lie to ourselves. Talking to our self and self-awareness is very important to keep ourselves healthy.

What can you write?

Whatever you feel like writing. There is no right or wrong when it comes to writing. Whatever comes naturally to you can be written. Like today I thought of writing a blog about 'writing'. Yesterday I thought of writing about a tutorial for a technology I learned. Tomorrow maybe I will write something about politics.

I like to write daily in my journal to document my goals for the day and any thoughts that matter. It's my private journal and only I read it. It just helps me to document anything that comes into my mind.

1. Blogs: You can write blogs where you share your learnings, life experiences, findings. opinions, tips, and tricks, your traveling experiences, your reviews for specific things, etc.

2. Forums: People have queries and if you know the answer, why not share it? There are lots of different forums where people are having questions. Find the one that you like and start answering. You will surely feel that you are helping the world.

3. Journal: Journals are diaries about your day-to-day life. Consider them as ledgers of your life where you write everything you took from this world and gave it back. You can write a travel journal if you are a travel fanatic. You can write a public or a private journal if you want to write for yourself that only you or your closed ones should read.

Where can you write?

Now that depends on what you want to write. If you want to write blogs, you should choose blogging platforms like ProductPottery, Medium or WordPress. You can choose a self-hosted WordPress or Ghost if you wish to blog on your own domain. Read my answer on Quora to know about available blogging platforms.

If you like to answer people's questions, you should look for QA sites and forums like Quora, Reddit, and StackExchange. Just find the one that best suits your ideas and community.

If you are an introvert or into writing private diaries and journals, you can choose private journal apps like Zero AM or DayOne. Or If you don't want to use any other software, Notepad is your tool.

Finally if are not too much into tech, you always can start with a pen and a notebook.

Conclusion

Just write. Start however you like doing it and start now. You will start seeing the benefits when you do. I am seeing it since I started it. You will too.