“Yes” is a commitment and “No” equals freedom. I like that saying and seldom have it been more appropriate than yesterday when I published my final daily upload on YouTube after publishing at least one video every single day since November 2019. I had concluded that video is the medium of the future, and decided that I needed to get comfortable in front of a camera, and that the best way to get there was to publish at least 1000 videos with a minimum of one per day. It is physically impossible to not get at least decent at it if you do it one thousand times. Yesterday, after I pressed the upload button for the final time in my somewhat insane endeavor, I experienced a strange and very satisfying feeling of inner peace. A sense of freedom.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistMay 31, 2022vlogging, blogging, video, writing, podcast, habits, consistencyComment

The worst days are the most important

I’ve been publishing content daily for more than two years by now and this is the most important lesson that I’ve learned. Never pre-produce your content! The best blogs and videos are created on the fly when you’re in the zone. You cannot pre-plan flow. However, writing a blog or recording daily videos has a flip side. What do you do when you are all out of inspiration? Sometimes life sends you a curveball and it is all but impossible to create. Today is one of those days, and I now wish that I had some pre-produced content ready to publish. But I don’t, so here I am anyway. And I guess that might be an even more important lesson.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistDecember 20, 2021blogging, vlogging, writing, thinking, consistencyComment

Creative starvation

Isn’t it paradoxical that to stimulate the creative process, you need to increase the difficulty and make it harder for yourself? Time constraints are especially useful in this regard and works very well for me. I.e. unconditionally write and publish a blog post in 30 minutes max. Like I just did with this one. Whatever you do, do not choose the “When it’s done”-approach. Because if you choose that road, the probability increases that you will remain stationary.

Art, HabitsRikard ÖqvistAugust 2, 2021writing, video, blogging, vlogging, creativity, routine, habits, growthComment

What is the purpose of 500 vlogs in 365 days?

Last year I attended an online course called the London Real Business Accelerator. The course had a strong focus on video and its importance for online business. A recurring theme throughout the whole course was to record vlogs. I believe most of you will agree with me that it is a strange and scary feeling to speak into a smart phone and publish it to the whole world forever. One of the tasks the first course week was to record 10 vlogs in 10 days. And on the 5th of November last year I recorded my first vlog. I had just finished an awfully long field day of measurements in the south of Sweden and had gotten into my rental car about to head back home. But I knew that I needed to record that vlog before I go, because it was late in the evening. So, after a LOT of resistance, I grabbed my phone and started talking about the thoughts that were in my head at that moment and published it on Youtube and shared the link on my other platforms. I did not stop at 10 vlogs, I just kept going. Now, a year later I am closing in 500 vlogs and the friction is all but gone. Here are some of the most important things I have learned.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistNovember 14, 2020vlogging, habits, discipline, consistency, video, practice, social mediaComment

How a vlogging habit is formed

I have been vlogging daily since early November last year. I publish a minimum of one video every day on Youtube, Facebook and Instagram. Sometimes I vlog on Linkedin too, but I am much more selective with my content there nowadays. I just did a summation and realized that I have passed 300 vlogs now. Vlogging has been a very effective way for me to discover how a habit is formed. At first, there was a lot of friction every single time before I released that daily video. Now that friction is all but gone. It is because my focus has now shifted to the process instead of each individual building block. To get the ball rolling in the beginning, it can help to create certain support systems to make your life easier. Later, when you got the momentum, you can start to remove the support systems.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistJuly 25, 2020vlogging, blogging, habits, productivity, schedulingComment

Quantity over Quality

I have always been obsessed with quality. When I was little, I took great care to arrange the Lego pieces in a symmetrical fashion. Just like a Patek Philippe watch, even the pieces inside the Lego build that weren’t visible to the eye had to be perfectly arranged. Maybe it’s not a big surprise that I chose to be an engineer and later pursued a PhD in Engineering Acoustics? Quality is important, but without Quantity, progress becomes impossible.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistFebruary 15, 2020blogging, vlogging, writingComment

Incremental progress towards mastery

I have been Vlogging since the 5th of November. I had never ever tried vlogging before and did not know what I was doing or how, I just knew that I had to do it. At the time of this writing, three months have passed, and I have produced at least one vlog every single day, some days even more. How long does it take to create a habit? I read in James Clear’s newsletter that it takes forever, because the minute you stop doing it, it is not a habit anymore. However, I just realized there is another way to look at it. You can create a habit instantly. I created my vlogging habit on the 5th of November because I knew I wouldn’t skip a single day no matter what happens. Today I reached a critical milestone in my habit.

HabitsRikard ÖqvistFebruary 8, 2020vlogging Comment