About Writing on Listed

When I started publishing on Listed, the thought of participating in the 100 Days Writing Challenge hadn't even crossed my mind. This was simply meant to be a way for me to "immortalise" — the self-indulgence, dear me — some of my ideas; ones that felt worth sharing, in a way.

What has surprised me is the ease with which I have already kept this going for ten days straight, now pushing eleven.

I noticed early on that writing about subjects that pertain to my field and to my degree have helped me retain that certain academic edge that quite easily becomes dulled in the gray monotony of the nine-to-five (or rather eight-to-four, as it is most often here).

This will likely come off as an obvious plug, but I feel that the Standard Notes & Listed pairing lends itself to this process tremendously. I was initially drawn to Standard Notes due to its privacy-centric leaning, as one handles an abundance of confidential material in my line of work.

What I found so intriguing was the juxtaposition — and the dynamic and tension therein — of the private–public dichotomy inherent to publishing a blog via a privacy-first platform.

Initially it might seem slightly contradictory, but there is a kind of introspection involved:

The type of compartmentalisation that this distinction brings to my workflow has somehow helped me keep up writing (for fun?) even when my job already requires quite a bit of writing.

When my profession involves writing many confidential things on a daily basis, writing in public becomes, paradoxically, something just for me — and that is exciting.

I'm still not committing to the Challenge in any way, mind you, but it doesn't seem all that unfeasible anymore.