Getting Started with Tiny Writing: How to Change Your Life in 20 Minutes a Day

Oh hi! I’m so glad you want to learn more about getting started with Tiny Writing!

Congratulations on taking the first step to establishing a writing habit and getting to know yourself better.

What’s that? You already have a writing habit but you’re just curious about Tiny Writing?

Awesome! I admire your dedication. And your curiosity. I really do think curiosity is underrated. And underutilized. But before I go down a curiosity rabbit hole, we better talk about getting started with Tiny Writing.

If you haven’t already ready you might want to go back and read Tiny Writing Can Yield Big Results.

What is Tiny Writing?

I’m sure you’re wondering what Tiny Writing is. And I fear I might have hyped it up too much and the definition is going to disappoint you. But what it lacks in pizzazz it makes up for in payout.

Tiny Writing is simply writing about one topic for twenty minutes straight every day for 30 days. And then doing it again. And again. And again . . . Sounds simple enough, right? But the everyday part is hard. Think about it . . . how many times have you started a journal, or a diary or a writing challenge and failed?

If your answer is “more times than I count” then we are on the same page. Even as someone who has always loved to write, I had a hard time establishing a consistent writing habit. I tried to keep a diary when my kids were small. I’d write down all the cute things they said, for a week or so. And then I’d keep a running list in my head for months and jot down as many as I could remember when “I got the chance.”

I really do think curiosity is underrated. And underutilized.

Sometimes I think this would be a much easier habit to maintain now with the Notes app on my phone. That app has saved forests full of trees, just from my own use. I was a busy young mom back then. Not to mention tired. Sitting down to write each night was tough. But that’s just an excuse. I could have made the time for writing. If it was important to me.

Tat wasn’t my only attempt at writing that failed. I’ve tried the One-Sentence Journal, the Gratitude Journal, a Year of Zen, daily goals, a quote to live by. You name it, I’ve probably tried it. And nothing stuck.

Until I tried Tiny Writing.

What makes Tiny Writing different is both the structure and the flexibility. The insight and the ease. The creativity and the focus.

Tiny Writing starts with “Why”

Tiny Writing is a 30-day process that starts with big questions to help you hone your why. I see you rolling your eyes. Great, you’re probably thinking. Here comes her inner copywriter coming out. Start with why. Wah, wah, wah . . .

I know . . . you just want me to tell you about getting started with Tiny Writing already.

Bear with me for a moment, and I’ll explain.

The reason that none of my other writing habits ever stuck was I didn’t have a reason for doing them. Or at least for doing them every day. I thought I should be keeping a diary. I thought I should be practicing gratitude. I thought should be recording at least a one-sentence summary of my day.

But I didn’t know why. I mean, what was the purpose? Who was ever going to go back and read this nonsense? What was the point of recording these mundane entries? I have no illusions of grandeur. I don’t expect that anyone is one day going to look back and say, “Oh, she ran five miles before breakfast, then made oatmeal, and did a science project with popcorn that her kindergarten students loved. How inspiring!” Ba-ha-ha!

At the time I was profoundly unhappy. And my family was facing some pretty significant challenges. But I felt guilty for feeling that way. I had three amazing children, and my work allowed me to be home with them most of the time. I had a beautiful home in a nice, safe neighborhood, with lots of children for my kids to play with. I had a “good marriage”. We had more than enough of what we needed. We drove expensive cars. We took regular vacations. I felt like I had no right to complain. Or even question my happiness.

But I had recently turned forty. I needed to get clear on what I wanted the second half of my life to look like. So one night I sat up in the dark, quiet house (I couldn’t sleep anyway), and made a giant list of questions. Little did I know I was actually getting started with Tiny Writing.

My Giant List of Tiny Writing Questions

I won’t bore you with all the questions I put on that list. They covered a variety of topics:

• Happiness and joy
• Grief and sadness
• Dreams and goals
• The past, the present, the future
• Purpose and values
• Work and Fun
• Friends and family
• Personality and productivity
• And more . . .

At the end of the night, I had 49 questions on my list. (I deeply debated going back to add one more, but I fought down my perfectionist urges and kept it at 49.) I told you it was a giant list. And there were some pretty deep questions on that list.

So when morning came I did what any rational, busy, self-sacrificing mom would do. I stuck the list in my nightstand drawer and started making waffles.

Getting Started with Tiny Writing

Those questions lived in my nightstand for about a year. A year that brought a wave of unexpected grief I couldn’t have imagined.

I was cleaning out my bedroom one day and I found them. I sat on the floor, surrounded by clutter, and read the list. And I started to cry. And then, when I was finished crying, I pulled a notebook from the bottom of one of the piles and I started writing.

I started with question number one, “What makes me happy?” And I wrote for about twenty minutes until I had to pick up my son from basketball.

I won’t say that something magical happened that afternoon. But as I drove to get my son I felt a little bit lighter. A little bit more hopeful. I spent twenty minutes writing about what made me happy and I realized as big as my grief was, I also had a lot of happiness to celebrate. And that realization made me want to find more to smile about.

Over the next few days, I returned to that list of questions again and again. I didn’t attack them in order. I handled all the happiness ones first and then I created categories. And over the course of the next two weeks, I made time to write every day. I usually did this in the school pick-up line, so I had about twenty minutes. That seemed to be a good amount of time to dive into a subject and to get past my superficial responses and defensive answers and really uncover my feelings.

At the end of the month, I was feeling better. I was feeling more in control. I was feeling more like me.

I had spent the past two decades sacrificing everything for others. First for law school. Then big law and clients. Then my marriage. Then my children. Then my students.

I hadn’t had a chance to be me in almost twenty years. It was no wonder I didn’t know who I was anymore!

That was alarming. And reassuring. And, as it turns out, inspiring.

Building the Tiny Writing Habit

It took me about six weeks to work my way through all those questions. That was the longest period of time I had ever written consecutively in my life.

I was proud of myself. Not so much for sticking with something. Follow-through isn’t usually hard for me. But for sticking with writing.

So I kept going.

I remember the day I finished the Giant List of Questions. I was scared. What was I going to write about tomorrow? I tried to brush the fear away and had faith in myself that I’d think of something. And, luckily, I did.

In those early days, when I was just getting started with Tiny Writing most of the entries read like a diary (They don’t anymore). I’d take something that happened that day and explore it on the page. These daily recounts were no longer a record for someone else to [not] read in the future. They were a way for me to make sense of the present–often by looking to the future or the past.

I have always been a person who learns by writing. This is a type of linguistic learning for any teachers out there. (Once a teacher always a teacher.) So, it’s no surprise that the writing process helped bring me clarity.

And one of the things it made clear was that I LOVED writing. And I still wanted to be a writer, an author, a NY Times Best-Selling author. Okay, maybe not the last one. But writing was one of the things I had given up. When I rediscovered it, I felt like a child eating a Mickey bar in front of Cinderella’s castle while the Princess brigade passed by. And I knew I still wanted to be a writer.

And if you want to be a writer, you’ve got to write. Every darn day.

So I do. And you can too!

Get Started with Tiny Writing Now

If you want to try Tiny Writing for yourself, today is as good a day as any. Feel free to borrow one of my topics from above to make your own list of giant questions. Or Join My Tiny Writing Tribe and I’ll send you my curated list of Getting Started with Tiny Writing Questions. (Don’t worry. There aren’t 49!)

And remember, being clear on why you want to start writing really is the key to making your habit stick.

Happy Writing!