7 Lessons From My 365 Days, 15 Minutes A Day Writing Challenge

With minimal sleep

Photo by Niketh Vellanki on Unsplash

A Year of Scribbling Transformed Me (and Can Change You Too)

Daily writing isn’t exactly the hottest trend on the self-improvement circuit.

It doesn’t involve chia seed smoothies, mindfulness mantras, or pretending to levitate in yoga pants (although, full disclosure, I did attempt that last one once. Let’s just say the downward-facing dog was more my speed).

But hear me out, weary warriors of the working world, because what I’m about to drop is a masterclass in sheer, unadulterated willpower.

For a whole year, I, the glorious sleep-deprived, double-job juggling maestro of multitasking, wrote every single day. Not for some Pulitzer Prize (though a girl can dream, right?), but as a form of self-therapy. It turns out, battling the daily grind can leave your psyche a little worse for wear.

But somewhere between dissecting my anxieties and rediscovering my teenage passion for storytelling, I stumbled upon a treasure trove of self-discovery.

This is a no-nonsense guide to harnessing your inner writing BEST.

Lesson #1: The Neuroscience of “Just One Sentence”

Some days are dumpster fires disguised as human experiences.

Sleep? A distant memory.

Energy? MIA.

On those days, aiming for a Hemingway-esque novel was about as realistic as me winning the Tour de France (spoiler alert: I haven’t trained a day in my life).

But here’s the secret science never told you about—the power of the single sentence. Neuroscience tells us that forming a habit involves creating a neurological loop — a pathway in your brain that gets stronger with repetition.

Even a single sentence throws a pebble into that pond, rippling the waters of habit formation. So, on those brain-dead days, I scribbled one measly sentence. Maybe it was profound (“The cat stared into the abyss, and the abyss stared back… mostly because it was hungry”).

Maybe it was mundane (“Need. More. Coffee.”). But that one sentence kept the loop going, proving to my sleep-addled brain that I could write, even in the chaos.

Lesson #2: Skip the Muse, Embrace the Schedule

Inspiration is a fickle friend. One day it showers you with lyrical genius; the next, it’s radio silence. Here’s the thing: waiting for inspiration is a recipe for writer’s block and a hefty dose of self-loathing.

Instead, I embraced the power of the schedule. Scheduling writing time, even just 15 minutes, became a non-negotiable part of my day. Treat it like a doctor’s appointment—you wouldn’t skip that, would you? (Unless it was the dentist, in which case, totally get it.)

This forced consistency kicked my brain into gear, proving that sometimes the best way to find inspiration is to simply show up and wait for the magic to happen.

Lesson #3: Forget Perfection, Embrace the “Meh”

We all have that inner critic — the one who whispers (or sometimes screams) that our writing is garbage. But here’s the truth bomb: the first draft is never, ever going to be a masterpiece. It’s supposed to be messy, incomplete, and riddled with enough typos to make a grammar nazi cry.

Instead of striving for perfection right out of the gate, I learned to embrace the “meh.” My first drafts were more like Frankenstein’s monsters than Shakespearean sonnets, but that was okay.

The important thing was to get words on the page, even if they were the literary equivalent of lukewarm coffee. Because, guess what? You can always polish a turd later (metaphorically speaking, of course). But you can’t polish a blank page.

Lesson #4: Multitasking is a Myth (Prioritize Instead)

Let’s dispel a myth: true multitasking is a superpower reserved for mythical creatures and maybe octopi (seriously, how do they manage eight appendages?). Juggling a family, three jobs, Uber duties, all sorts of household chores, and writing definitely felt like being in a circus.

The key lies in prioritization. It meant saying “no” to some things to make space for writing. Even if it meant writing between folding laundry and microwaving dinner, those smaller tasks were sacrificed to the writing gods.

Lesson #5: Ride the Emotional Rollercoaster

Remember how I mentioned writing as therapy? Yeah, that wasn’t exactly a lie. But here’s the brutal truth: digging around in your own head can get messy. Writing has the power to unlock Pandora's box of emotions.

Instead of shoving the box back under the bed, I learned to sit with the discomfort. Writing became a safe space to process those emotions—the comedy, the childhood traumas, the whole messy spectrum of being human. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was damn well liberating.

Lesson #6: Quantity Over Quality (At Least at First)

If I ever get on the bestseller list, that last statement might come back to haunt me. But early on, focusing on quantity over quality was a game-changer. It gave me permission to be bad, to experiment, to take wild swings and miss the mark spectacularly. It freed me from the tyranny of my inner editor, allowing me to write without constantly second-guessing myself.

I churned out more cringeworthy prose than I care to admit, but hidden within that were flashes of brilliance, kernels of ideas that later bloomed into something worthwhile. It turns out, you can’t get to the good stuff without wading through a certain amount of garbage.

Lesson #7: Failure? Just a Stepping Stone (Okay, Maybe a Boulder)

Spoiler alert: I didn’t suddenly land a book deal or see my scribbles go viral after a year of daily writing. In fact, there was a distinct absence of fame, fortune, and literary accolades (though if any publishers are out there, hit me up). Did it sting? Sure, a little. There were moments of crushing self-doubt, of wondering whether it was all a waste of time.

But here’s the thing about failure: it’s like a supervillain—it always comes back stronger eventually.

So, I practiced the fine art of dusting myself off and getting back to work.

I learned to see failure not as an endpoint but as a data point—a chance to analyze what didn’t work and recalibrate for the next round.

It turns out that tenacity is more than just a fancy word — it’s a superpower forged in the heat of disappointment.

So, Where Does This Leave Me (and You)?

One year of writing transformed me, not into the next JK Rowling (though, hey, dreams are free), but into something even better—a better version of myself.

I’m more confident, more resilient, and, dare I say, a more interesting human being.

And hey, who knows? Maybe my year of scribbling will eventually lead to some form of literary domination. Or perhaps it’ll be nothing more than a stack of dusty notebooks and a slightly inflated ego.

But either way, I’ve proven to myself that even in the maelstrom of a sleep-deprived, over-caffeinated, gloriously messy life, there’s always time to create, to explore, and to rediscover the power of words.

And hey—if that lesson can survive my year of barely contained chaos, maybe it has a fighting chance in your world too.

Grab a notebook, a pen (or keyboard), and start scribbling! Share your journey and connect with fellow writers in the comments below.

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