I am stuck, so here is a checklist on how to write articles to make it easier for me to get started

Man is stressed, send help please

I am stuck. I want to write articles, but I am stuck. I start too many drafts on my medium account and work on them for a while before I give up on them. That sucks, and I want to change it. So I wrote this on a whim past midnight on a Saturday night.

I will be honest here, something that I really liked to do when I start procrastinating, is to watch youtube videos on how to be more productive, simply because it feels like that is the most effective form of procrastination that I can engage in without feeling too guilty about my actions. And it’s true, sometimes I spend more time watching videos on how to be more productive and motivational speeches than actually doing work and being productive. Perhaps I don’t like the work, or perhaps I am just lazy. But that’s beside the point. The point is I am stuck and I waste time pretending to be productive.

A few days back, I was got a youtube subscription notification about a new video that Matt D’Avella posted. Now I don’t know if you have ever watch any of his videos, but they are smooth AF, they tell stories to illustrate something that we can relate to, before presenting the solutions to our problems in nice neat packages. Back to the point, so I opened up this video, and I eagerly await with anticipation for the new piece of shining information delivered through a relaxing format and I WATCHED IT. Unsurprisingly, it dropped some mad knowledge on me. Video linked below so you can watch it first, and comeback for what I learnt from it.

The key takeaways from this video is that, checklists can save your ass and improve your life. How? Well our brains, are not that good with doing many tasks continuously and it makes errors as it grows more and more fatigue, which is described by the term decision fatigue. So in order to prevent making those mistakes, let’s just write down a checklist of the things that we should do in a particular context, and use it every single time we perform that action/activity. By doing so, we remove the need for our brain to think and process these additional steps that are repetitive, and allows for us to make sure we don’t miss anything and keep our brains less stressed when performing the actual tasks that require heavy brain thinking.

B00M, mad knowledge. While this can seem to be such a simple and obvious thing to do, I did not always fully understand the reason behind it or at least it didn’t fully register in my brain, until Matt’s fantastic video for me to ingest it with delight.

And now, since I am in a bit of a rut, I decided that if I can’t come up with something to write about, or if I can’t bring myself to write finish the articles that I started and are way overdue by now, why don’t I just push out a simple article, one which I myself can read to remember the importance of checklists and an actual checklist on how to write out my other articles. So now that I talked about, or kinda illustrated the importance of checklists, here is my actual checklist, albeit rather rudimentary.

Checklist Time

My checklist is a rather simple list build on top of the PEEL writing technique, which is a way of structuring paragraphs in a way that presents a single clear and focused argument, which can be linked back to the essay topic or thesis statement.

1. Introduction to what I will be writing about.
2. Why it matters and why am I writing it.
3. The Point I am trying to make.
4. Example’s of the point.
5. Elaboration and further explanation on the example.
6. How the example links to and support my point.
7. Commenting on whether I made my point and a final sharing session on the motive for the article.
8. Conclusion of the article, usually with a call to action! So that my readers can gain some actionable insights, rather than just interesting chatter in their already overloaded minds.
9. Thank you note to the readers.

And, that’s it. That is the most basic format for an article that I can write while roughly following this checklist! Through this checklist I do believe that I would be able to better my writing frequency, which I believe is the ultimate way to improve my writing. Since this checklist will essentially be acting as my guide to tell me what to do next, instead of relying on my brain to think of what to write next every single time, which I will be lazy to do and end up procrastinating again…

Well, it seems that I have come to the limit of my patience to get this article done, and I am both happy that I wrote this on a whim and slightly annoyed that I am doing this instead of something less productive like eating peanut butter and drinking coconut milk while watching another of Matt’s wonderful production. I really do believe that by implementing more of checklists in my life, I would be able to become better and more productive, simply because my brain needs less effort to get started on that task or activity. And wisely said by someone, "getting started is the key to success".

Thank you so much for reading this article for whatever reasons. Bless you, literally though, I feel happy about it... and like what I wrote in the checklist, here is my call to action for you.

Watch the damn video again if you need and START writing your own checklists. I will wait… done? Good, put your pens down and watch as your life gets more and more beautiful as you live your life with the gentle guiding of these magical checklists! Have a blessed day in today’s chaotic world and hope that you would be able to read another of my articles someday soon.