I have a confession.
I write for confetti.
The writing habit website 750Words.com got a makeover recently, so I came back after a long time away.
I’ve written at least 750 words each day since April 9th, 2025, without missing a day.
That’s 112 days and counting.
Every day that I complete, I get a small bit of electronic confetti over my words as soon as I hit 750.
“Congratulations, John, you did it again!”
I’ll share with you some takeaways and insights I got working with 750Words daily for approaching four months.
1. It’s a great place to draft an article
This article that you’re reading? Most of the content is my writing from July 21st in 750Words (“the website”).
There’s no right or wrong way to use the website. Sometimes I’ll have a goal, like fleshing out an outline for an article. Other times it will be short-form, or no-form.
Lately I’ve been adding a task timer to the mix to see how quickly I can push out the 750 words. One classic pomodoro (25 minutes) is 30 words a minute. That can give some breathing room to form sentences properly. Other times I’ll crank the speed up to 50 words a minute (15 minutes total).
Either way, with 750 words it’s the word count that matters, so it depends on the mood (and how close to midnight I am!) how fast I go.
2. Speech-to-text is a thing (and it even works sometimes)
Here’s part of what drew me back.
I discovered that Windows 11 was much better integrated with speech-to-text than Windows 10 was. There were significant hurdles to getting speech-to-text to work on 10, either with money or headache.
For most of the 112 days, I talked through my thoughts and had them transcribed by the software. It was a breakthrough in getting my thoughts down. Before, seemed to have issues with typing and certainly with writing them down. My handwriting was barely legible if I was on a roll.
It worked beautifully for a bit. And then, for some reaso,n things got clogged in the pipeline, and the transcription would stop. I’d need to restart the speech-to-text regularly. I was paying too much attention to it and not concentrating on what I was saying.
So I went back to typing for the past couple of weeks.
3. It’s good practice to get words out faster
Even with the speed hit that I had with going from talking to typing, I was still doing it faster than I was before, which is good.
The other piece that helped, I mentioned before: I put myself on a timer.
Having a deadline in general has helped me to just do things. Given more time, I’ll be more easily distracted and let the work fill the time allotted (Parkinson’s Law).
Any content creation I do is alongside a 9-to-5 job. Increasing my efficiency is front and center. Putting a deadline on things, even one that appears arbitrary and artificial, helps.
4. It can be therapy
A fair number of my 75,000 words during that time were “dear diary” words: words that I just needed to get out. Words that I wouldn’t tell anyone else. (They’re my words to use how I like, darn it!)
This was a game-changer and something that I’d put off for far too long.
Having done it some times over the past few months, I now see why it’s helpful. Getting bothersome thoughts down “on paper” acknowledges them, and somehow decreases the power they have when they’re doing nothing but bouncing around in your head.
750 Words will analyze your writing for
- How you’re feeling (happy, sad, worried, etc.)
- What you’re thinking about (work, play, health, etc.)
- Mindset (introvert / extrovert, uncertain / certain, etc.)
- Time orientation (past, present, future)
- Primary sense (sight, hearing, etc.)
- I, Us, You, or Them
It can tell when I’m worried, or feeling down, or angry, or occasionally happy. Plus other stuff.
This kind of writing will continue as I need it.
5. I experimented with some prompts
A couple of times I tried starting with a prompt of some kind.
I didn’t purpose in my heart to have a preset writing-exercise topic to write about very much. Usually, I had enough on my mind in front of me that I could just start writing and go.
I’ll revisit writing prompts when I feel things starting to stagnate.
6. Sometimes I just plain talked about my day
Then there were the words I used just talking about my day.
My wife used to journal in Sierra Club calendars. There was only a couple of inches of space to do the journaling, so she mainly hit on the high points of the day, or big things that happened during the day, for posterity.
I didn’t talk about my days every night, but I did talk about them some nights. It mostly depended on whether or not I was done with the 750 words (I rarely went over). Still though it was nice to have gotten down some of these memories. Too many days I have no recollection about except that I got through it.
7. I used it as a sounding board for my creator business
A recurring topic for my daily writing was strategy for where my creator business was going.
This ended up incredibly repetitive. The repetition was more that I didn’t (and still don’t really) have a good system and a solid plan for where it’s going. It was mainly to-dos and things I wanted to remember.
Other times, I was drafting articles, or drafting short posts.
To a large extent, I was thinking, “OK, I need to do 750 words, let’s use up some of them on X”. A bit basic and not terribly inspired or planned, but it was what it was. A lot worse things I could be doing with those 20-25 minutes, I’m sure!
8. Finally, brainstorming
The times I’m not completely just plowing through my 750 words like I am tonight, because it’s close to midnight, I would allow myself to wander and say, “OK yeah” and then wait for what would come out next.
This is a writing practice.
It’s not Seth Godin-level where he hits publish every day, but it’s a start.
One of these days I’ll miss. I’ll be sad. And life will go on. I’ll come back.
The other practice I’ve kept with for about the same time is my Solid Cash Tips newsletter. It’s gone out six times a week since the beginning of April as well!
I recently changed the format from a “minimalist” format to a short 1-2 minute insight on the creative journey and the path to turning it into a second income.
Would love for you to check it out!
Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash