June 4, 2021
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on habits, MVPs & drafts: start small.

What do habits, Minimum Viable Products and first drafts have in common?
They are the first iteration of a concept that will likely go through many changes.

When working on a project you are strongly attached to, there is a grandiose desire to have it be perfect when you launch. We become so attached to the concept our egos get in the way.

Too often, we imagine the final project being a large, compelling, complex and beautiful concept that stuns people at first glance. The same goes for habits and personal development. Human history and data will tell you that this is rarely the case.

Logically speaking, our first attempts at something are rarely perfect. How often is the first person you meet your partner for life? What about your first job?

Your first career and job is rarely the final path you pursue and stay on. Iterations and adjustments are eventually made along the way as you learn more information.

Startups, following the Lean Startup Method, learn this by starting small and moving fast. They build MVPs, or minimum viable products, the smallest lego block representing a sliver of the final idea.

They learn to ship the smallest scope of a project and iterate from there.

By starting small, you become future focused on ways to improve and iterate. Creating in this way reduces the desire for perfection and your mind invests instead on making improvements.

By reducing the stress of having a perfect outcome, starting small allows you to maintain a playful mindset and welcomes mistakes.

And by making the first mistake fast, you can move on from the emotional attachment and work on making it better.

The same can be said for our writing.

June 3, 2021
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writing is like a startup: fuck it, ship it.

When we form an idea we’re passionate about, our mind starts playing countless scenarios and plans of what it’s final form could be.

This is one of the biggest virtues of the human mind.

The evolutionary development of our brains allows creativity, we are unique in our power to imagine.

This is what happens when we first start an exciting project. Our minds begin imagining all the scenarios of what it could be. We begin planning to figure out how we might bring these ideas to fruition.

This is also one of the biggest follies of the human mind.

Overplanning leads to inaction.

We plan because we have a compelling desire to prepare for the future.

Startups teach us to minimize planning and form a bias towards action.

With startups, this means shipping imperfect work.
With writing, this means publishing the “shitty first draft.”

Whenever we find ourselves compelled to overplan and refine, it’s a sign of procrastination. Our first version is rarely the final version.

If your concept hasn’t shipped, or your writing hasn’t been published, it only exists as an idea.

The future is uncertain.

As creators, we can never predict every future scenario when it comes to shipping work. There is just way too much uncertainty.

If it doesn’t see the light of day, you’ll never be able to uncover feedback. The best way to reduce this uncertainty is by increasing opportunities for feedback.

This means shipping early and shipping fast.

It’s best to get it out of our minds and onto paper, or product, and begin iterating from there.

After all,

“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

 — Reid Hoffman

June 2, 2021
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hi there, i’m yina 👋

Before embarking on this daily essay challenge, I’d like to introduce myself.

Firstly, who I am, and who I hope to be at the end of this experience.

Who I am is a shy girl filled with stage fright and major imposter syndrome about to perform her first solo on stage, squinting against the spotlight as she searches amidst anonymous faces for a familiar one.

I feel quite exposed if we’re being honest. This is the first time my online life and physical one are slowly integrating together. Anonymity and compartmentalizing won’t work going forward.

Yet, while there is a lot of fear swirling around here, at the same time, there is also a lot of hop.

Like many other writers, I’m hoping this experience will be transformative. Both for myself and for those that stumble onto these notes.

However, it’s day one and I’ve written three different versions ready to publish only to sigh and set aside each one.

Why?

Because I’m not entirely sure what I want to say yet. Because it feels like I’m talking about you, not to add value. Because it feels like I’m posturing until I do.

But until I get there, I hope you bear with me.

I hope you tolerate the existential essays I wrote to you, while I figure it out. And cringe at the lesser formed raw essays while acknowledging they exist solely to be consistent — to let go of my ego.

To recognize it’s about the practice of getting words on paper, and not just the final product.

The bright side is that with every attempt, I feel more comfortable acknowledging that I don’t know where I’m going just yet, and being okay with that.

I hope you see this essay for what it is — an exercise in thinking out loud, and getting comfortable stumbling in public.

At the end of these daily essays, after what I assume will be many, many, stumbles, I’ll take comfort that these stumbles will turn the shy girl into a seasoned performer, reader to strut on stage.

May 30, 2021
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revelations on writing: fin.

It’s always fun to find new mediums of expression, to explore new ways of thinking.

For the past ten days, I’ve truly enjoyed thinking and expanding my mind more on the subject of writing.

Creating this constraint of a mini essay helps me focus on a singular topic and wring out ten different ideas on this concept.

What’s funny is that — through this experiment, I was worried I would run out of things to say. But as I began writing, I realized that I have even more to say than before.

Ten days to write on one subject is not enough. I almost wish for 90 days more.

And beyond that, a yearning exists to know and understand more on this subject.

Writing about writing, while oddly meta, led me down many paths: metacognition, language itself, the anatomy of a thought, humanity as a whole, it’s purpose, our purpose, the list goes on.

It’s fascinating how many different ideas can be inextricably tied together — and perhaps even more beautifully, how we as humans have the ability to link two disparate ideas together through grey matter the size of our fist.

Learning has always brought me so much joy.

The opportunity to channel it in this way has been extremely precious, and something I’d like to continue as an experiment. Perhaps selfishly, this may be more for myself to expand my own mind.

But that’s something precious on it’s on too, no?

May 29, 2021
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revelations on writing: building civilizations.

All species have their ways of communicating.

However it is our ability to use words and language to communicate that sets us apart. It’s an indispensable part of our species, and how we as humans — weak in stature compared to other apex predators, have come to populate the world.

Words are the foundation of our legacy.

Language helps us communicate, connect, collaborate.

Look around you. Ask yourself: is there anything around you that has not been constructed through the power of words?

Words allow us to create ideas, process thoughts, and communicate emotions. Writing have shaped culture, written code, printed books, created plays, built products, erected empires, governments, bridges, buildings.

We build advanced civilizations through them.
And just as easily tear them down with the same tool.

Language has the ability to turn an abstract idea into something tangible.

So many of these complex creations began as a single thought that were then translated into words on paper. And that’s the beauty of it: language is what helps a thought coalesce.

May 28, 2021
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revelations on writing: to learn, we must re-write

If we are looking for an effective way to learn, we must write.

What I am describing is essentially re-writing. To paraphrase someone else’s knowledge applied to our own context, our world view and emotions

When we rewrite knowledge in our own words, it becomes a transformation: Instead of a carbon copy of someone else’s wisdom, we infuse their concepts with our own essence.

In paraphrasing someone else’s knowledge, we create our own wisdom.

While more time consuming in the short term, writing this way compounds into more knowledge because we internalize what we read and consume, instead of information going in one ear and out the other.

Exclamation Points and Question Marks

When friends ask to borrow books, I often sheepishly apologize in advance for their poor reading experience.

More often than not, I will offer to buy them a copy instead.

The insides of my books are covered with underlines, scribbles, notes, insights, takeaways, emojis, or random exclamation points or question marks. Sometimes an emoji or two if I’m feeling artistic.

I am aware these notes will eventually fade away or get lost over time, I find them all the more precious this way.

I’m not looking for them to become a part of my digital library of notes. The maintenance of such a system can take away from the spontaneous joy I feel when reading a book.

What they represent instead are retellings of knowledge, internalized through my own life experience. In doing so, I make the author’s words my own, in my own unique way.

May 27, 2021
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Revelations on Writing: To Learn, You Must Write

When I was in college, I was often taught that the best way to learn is to teach someone else.

Now that I’m no longer in the classroom, I’ve learned that a shortcut to both — and to maximize effectiveness of your teaching, is to write.

When I write for the purpose of taking notes, to think, or explain something, my quality of my writing has a direct correlation to my level of understanding.

Writing to Learn on @yinadreamsofspace

Previously, I had an Instagram account focused on science communication called @yinadreamsofspace. I used it to share topics related to astrophysics and space exploration. It was related to my passion for space, and I used it as a platform to teach others, and myself, about space concepts.

I did this all through the writing in my captions. 

Per The Learning Agency Lab, research has shown how writing leads to better learning — whether it be through note-taking, or even better, re-writing concepts in your own words.

This process represents more active learning rather than passive consumption, and practices memory retrieval as well as processing.

But how you write is important.

Instagram is not the best platform for text heavy posts, each caption has a character limit. At the same time, it represented a reasonable enough constraint that I could use to try and simplify a complex subject into the smallest atomic definition I could design.

Writing this way helped me learn more about space than I could have done through a sheer course alone that was based solely on consumption. By sharing knowledge through my own words on a social media platform, I was incentivized by my engagement to write in a way that was informative, as well as engaging.

It’s a kind of mental Catch-22: the only way not to have to write things down is to write them down so you remember them well enough not to have written them down.

Lifehack

This helped me remember and store these concepts in my long term memory.

This experience blogging about space was one of the periods of my life that I felt like I learned the most — and in a way, was one of the periods I felt the most alive.

It helped me realize the power of writing — what it can do for me personally, and how I can connect with others through my words.

May 26, 2021
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Revelations on Writing: Writing is Shapeshifting

The more I write, the more I realize writing is akin to shapeshifting.

Writing has many reasons to change it forms — your writing style and format changes depending on medium it is shared on, the audience you speak to, the platform you share, the relationship you have with the person.

But they all represent words you string together for some sort of purpose:

  • to inform
  • to persuade
  • to explain

It’s important we recognize the forms writing can take to understand how we need to mold our writing to fit the vessel at hand.

How you write in an email feels different from a Twitter thread, or an article posted on SubStack, or even a text message to a friend.

More importantly, they serve a different purpose. We naturally mold our writing depending on the end purpose and medium.

When we start observing and thinking more about writing, it’s fascinating how much we see it everywhere — and how different it can be once we observe the variables that exist.

Writing is a beautiful thing.

May 25, 2021
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Revelations on Writing: Publishing Equals Opportunity

As I continue to explore the value of publishing, I still struggle to clarify reasons why publishing is important.

In my bones I know it is, but for some reason there are some mental blockers. This presents a fun and interesting challenge — I look forward to asking for different perspectives on the value of publishing and why it is something inherently valuable.

As mentioned yesterday, publishing helps get your words out on paper.

It’s a forcing function to help you understand your ideas and process your thinking.

Beyond that though, there’s another great value of publishing.

It is the most highly leveraged tool for building out your network to uncover opportunities.

Publishing = Opportunity

Writing = Self Expression. Publishing = Opportunity

This paper from SciElo Brazil emphasizes the importance of scientific publications to move public health forward.

Mengistu Asnake, President of the World Federation of Public Health Associations, sees publications as an asset — something that appreciates over time.

Publications can also be regarded as an asset that enables authors to gain recognition and acknowledgement as experts in a particular field at national and international levels.

Mengistu Asnake

Publishing is a highly leveraged tool — what technology has done to level the playing field is mind boggling. For the first time in history, individual humans can wield the same amount of influence as a fully staffed media agency.

Publication agencies are an entity of the past.

The overhead and managerial costs to continuously write and publish information is fast become inefficient. Instead, it is paving the way for the flourishing creator economy that celebrates the individual, not the whole.

And in this creator economy, we can thrive by publishing and sharing. As knowledge workers, publishing is what helps us stand out from others. It is by publishing that we begin being recognized as experts in our field and build authority on a subject.

Implementing research and publishing results is crucial for a career in sciences. Doing research is only half of the picture. If the results of research studies or program documentations are not published- and where they are published has an important impact also- other researchers cannot appreciate the value of the evidence generated, they cannot see the evidence or further build on it, and overall science cannot develop and grow.

While many of us are not publishing academic papers and pursuing a career in academic, why should we not view our own publications with the same approach? 

How else can we move our industry forward if we do not actively talk and engage with what is currently happening?

May 24, 2021
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Revelations on Writing: Writing vs. Publishing

I write every day as part of my daily routine.

I brain dump ideas for projects, I do interstitial journaling, I complain and talk about how annoyed I get when my barista gets my name wrong. I do a morning pages exercise every day as stream of consciousness writing to clear my mind.

But what I’ve since learned, is that writing alone is not enough.

TIL: Writing and Publishing are different.

Even though I write every day, it’s only recently that I began this experiment of publishing daily. Before, and quite frankly even now, I still strongly believe that my daily thoughts and ideas do not warrant publishing every day.

This is a question I am attempting to exercise through this ten day exercise, where I attempt to write daily as often as possible on a singular subject as a way to get my thoughts down on my paper.

I still primarily believe that for the most part, my ideas and topics of the day aren’t worth sharing out loud. They may be half-baked, or full of my own internal biases that I don’t recognize are blindspots.

There is far too much noise, not enough signal.

My writing is comprised primarily of notes and fleeting thoughts.

Because there is no accountability of external eyes, when looking back at my old notes I find they seem scattered, erratic and make little sense.

In some ways, this mini essay is my attempt at convincing myself why frequent publishing is important.

And for that matter, what is a good balance between writing and publishing?

Publishing = accountability.

When you write to publish, even if it’s to an invisible audience, as the author you are suddenly entrusted with responsibility.

It is your duty to share some semblance of a concrete thought, with strong conviction or a compelling argument.

You’ll need to have examples to back up your writing; when you write to publish, you have created a container for yourself. Within the span of X words, your aim is to get your point across. You do not have the luxury of time and rambling thoughts. You’ve entered into a contract with your reader, and you must fulfill the obligation of communicating on the subject matter at hand.

In fact, what I’d love to show here is an example of the fleeting notes brain dump of an article, compared to the polished piece as a form of compare and contrast.

I wonder how I might be able to accomplish this. I really would love to show a good example instead of telling this aspect.

Writing for oneself is great — it’s a great way to help you think out loud and process your thoughts. At the same time, because it is only for yourself, your brain holds tons of shortcuts around context. Look at anyone’s public journal and quite often, to the external reader, the conversation at hand makes little sense.

There is so much additional work required to explain something to an outsider.