I tried to write 500 words a day for 5 days a week. 1 month results

Everyone should write.

Writing is the superpower of humankind. It is our truest form of magic.

Where nothing existed before, writing allows you to create value from thin air. It costs you personally, very little to write down the lessons of your life, what you are learning, what you know.

And yet those few minutes spent writing can be life-altering for the right reader at the right time.

Furthermore, writing is the foundation of nearly every technology and innovation because we can build upon others who have recorded their process and learning. And these innovations are passed down from generation to generation, allowing our children to inherit a richer intellectual fortune than what we were born into. The world is richer because we write and nobody is made poorer in the process.

adapted from James Clear

I know these things. But in the last year I published maybe 6 things on the internet.

When I was making my 2025 goals, I decided I needed to write more. Like a lot more. So I commited to the 500–5–1 challenge.

Write 500 words a day, 5 days a week, for 1 year.

Here are the results so far.

I missed no days the first week.
I missed 1 day the 2nd week but published on Saturday so still hit it.
I missed no days the 3rd week.
I missed 2 days the 4th week. I was sick on day and then my wife took me on a surprise trip. No complaints there, but I did miss.
And surprisingly I missed 2 days the 5th week. I was sick again but the last day I was just super busy with the published essays. Prompting them, answering questions and updating issues people found.

But I am more proud of the published results.

Essays published in Jan 2025 (15)

We all want to make changes in the ‘New Year New Me’ season, but don’t forget what won’t change

Impossible to Fail — How to setup your life so you can’t fail to achieve your goal

How can you create a system so you can’t fail to achieve your goal? Start with setting good goals

How to achieve any goal — create your can’t fail system

Four rules for stress free packing

Why do we love Spotify Wrapped so much?

Product Idea — Spotify Wrapped, but for your whole life

New Restaurants in Salt Lake City - January 2025

These next 4 essays were me exploring ideas, which eventually I published to my AI newsletter.

If you can dream it, you can build it.

Want to make an app? Start with using AI chatbots

You can build any app you want with AI developer tools

Cloud AI builders can help you build the app of your dreams

This was the final essay where I put them all togther and added more.

Can you build an app with 1 prompt?

I competed in utahs shortest hackathon, and it taught me a lot about building apps with AI

AI image generators can do readable text in images now, I tested 8 to find the best one

Results of the published essays

The best results came from the app building essay. 3.5k views and 10 new subscribers.

2nd best came from AI image generator essay. 3.2k views and getting shared on LinkedIn.

A surprising learning is that Medium is dead. Most of the essays I published on Medium got less than 10 views.

I don’t mind, I wrote them for me, but still shocking. I am going to transition all my writing on Medium to my own blog, where it probably should have been all the way along.

Plan for February

Goal is 100% no misses for Feb.

I started this challenge wondering what I would write about. Now I have a backlog of 50+ ideas, most of which I will probably never get to because I keep getting better and newer ideas.

I find it is easiest if I write in the morning after doing spiritual readings and mediation. So I will keep that going.

And my backup plan is to bang out 500 words in an Apple Note right before bed if I have failed to write the 500 words at a normal time.

No miss Feb here I come.

Want to join me? Shoot me a message on X, I would love to support and read your writing.

-Josh