There is a notebook on my nightstand I have never opened. Cream pages, a ribbon down the spine, still sealed in its plastic. I can hear the wrap crackle when I reach past it for the lamp, which is, frankly, the only use it has had.
Underneath it sits the old one. Cover soft at the corners, three pages written, the rest blank. So that’s where we are: two notebooks, zero writing, and me telling myself the new one was for the real project.
Here is what I actually write on. Post-its. Cheap spiral notebooks from the drugstore. Index cards. The napkin under my coffee when an idea shows up before I do. The ribbon notebook was bought for the writer I wanted to look like. The napkins belong to the one who writes.
Buying the notebook felt like starting. So does downloading the app, saving the course for Sunday, and building the perfect folder for drafts you’ll write once everything is set up. The setup hands you credit for work you haven’t done yet. Then the credit runs out and you’re back where you were with one more lovely object on the shelf.
So this week, my very unglamorous proposal: buy nothing. Seven objects you already own, a few minutes a day, five days a week. Each one asks you to make something small before you take anything in. Do the whole week if you want it. If seven feels like too many, pick one and start there.
The seven
I. The journal you already half-filled
Find the notebook with three pages written and the rest blank. Open it to the next empty page, write today’s date, start there. What a stalled project loses is evidence, and those three pages are evidence. Somebody sat down and wrote them, and that somebody was you.
II. A deck of cards
Keep a deck next to your coffee. Tuesday and Thursday, draw one card before the first sip. Suit sets the subject, number sets how many words. Hearts are something you love, spades something you’re avoiding, diamonds something you want, clubs something you’re working on. Face cards count as 11, 12, 13. An ace gives you one word on whatever that suit asked about.
Three of hearts, three words about something you love. Nine of spades, nine words about what you’ve been putting off. The card answers the question of how much to write, and that question is usually what keeps the page empty.
III. The mirror and a marker
Write one line to yourself on the bathroom mirror with a dry-erase marker. The sentence you need while you brush your teeth. Leave it until it stops being true, then wipe it and write the next one.
IV. Your phone camera
Once a day, photograph something you walk past constantly and have never really looked at. Mine is the one at the top of this piece, a bee on a flower. I took it and kept it, and then it started doing something the notebook never did. It became a toy. “BEE” yourself today. Today I’m not busy, I’m BEE-sy. Silly reminders I write for myself, and they make me smile every time. The camera already lives in your pocket. This gives it a new job, pointing at the ten feet of hallway you cross forty times a day, and sometimes what it catches turns into a joke you get to keep.
V. Your own bookshelf
Pull any book, open to a random page, copy the last line on it into your journal. That line is now the first line of whatever you write next. Keep going for five minutes. Every reader is pulling from a different shelf, so no two people doing this today start in the same place.
VI. Your voice memo app
Monday, talk to yourself for one minute about the week ahead, including the part you’re dreading. Don’t play it back. Friday, listen, and hear which of Monday’s worries actually showed up. Most of mine don’t.
VII. The kitchen timer
Mine has never once been used for writing, which is why it works. Four minutes, write until it goes off, stop mid-sentence if that’s where you are. Short enough that you can’t talk yourself out of it, long enough that something usually arrives around minute three.
If yours isn’t a timer, it’s something else. Sticky notes, the back of an envelope, the whiteboard nobody uses for groceries.
The week
Every weekday: one photo.
Monday: voice memo, mirror line.
Tuesday and Thursday: draw a card, write in the journal.
Wednesday: pull a book, borrow its last line.
Friday: play Monday’s memo, check whether your mirror line still holds.
The timer goes wherever you need it, usually on the morning you don’t want to do any of this.
The part most of us skip
Writing something once is a wish. Reading it back is where it starts to come true. On Friday you see the line in your own handwriting, or hear Monday’s worry in your own voice, and you get to check it against the week you actually had.
The mirror line gets that second look every morning, which is why I’d keep it over the other six. You write it once, you read it every time you brush your teeth, and after a week you decide whether it still holds.
Tonight
The wrapped notebook stays where it is. I’m opening the old one and turning to page four. Pick one object and put it where you’ll trip over it tomorrow morning. The deck on the counter, the marker by the sink. When you see it, use it before you pick up your phone.
Then pick up your phone and show us your object in the comments.
Your notebook doesn’t have to stay blank alone. Come write with us in the Writing Lab.
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Good gosh these are all - ever single one of them - so interesting and unique. I want to do them all. Going to use your schedule. ♥️♥️♥️
Thank you! I will try some of these ..