With a keyboard!
I forgot this simple fact. Over the last two months, I let learning a new workflow derail one of my most important goals.
One of my goals for 2026 is to write daily and publish regularly on my website. After an initial struggle, I got into a nice rhythm. I had a daily writing practice and I was able to publish 2-3 posts a week. As my practice stabilized, I realized that the process I used to write and publish was still heavily dependent on software from large tech companies.
My decision to exclusively rely on Free and Open Source Software meant that a complete overhaul of my workflow would involve a steep learning curve. Not only did I underestimate how steep the learning curve would be, but I also responded by going all in when I wasn't happy with my rate of progress.
In hindsight, I should have decided to change my workflow one step at a time. To make time for the learning, I also should have set a sub-goal of writing only short posts. This would have ensured that I didn't lose my daily writing practice or my weekly publishing habit.
Instead of doing that, I have spent the last two months trying to learn how to write in markdown and master the use of Vim, one of the most powerful and popular editors. Sadly, my writing and publishing output has been close to zero during this time.
Initially I rationalized the dip in productivity as the cost of learning. After all, even Tiger Woods had to take a break from competition to rebuild his swing.
It took me a while to realize that I had fallen into a familiar pattern.
I had prioritised the thrill of learning something new over my actual goal.
Unlike me, Tiger Woods had not stopped playing golf while he worked on his swing.
To move forward without losing track of my goals, I prompted ChatGPT to provide me the shortest list of commands for Vim that I needed to know to write blogposts. With a printout of this list by my side, I just wrote this blogpost on Vim.
And yes, all I really needed to write this blogpost on Vim was comfort with the keyboard. The rest I can learn while continuing to write.