The day I left my phone at the coat check

What a device-free afternoon in San Francisco taught me about writing, focus, and why word counts are lying to you

I took a thinking day in San Francisco, with no devices, inspired by a suggestion from Cal Newport’s podcast. With my phone and laptop in the coat check at the Asian Art Museum and armed with a pen and notebook, I browsed the museum, walked along Market St, before finally settling down in the San Francisco Public Library to write in my notebook. My intention was to write about something that had been bothering me lately. Why does it feel so hard to make any progress?

My goal for my writing practice is to give my life energy and intention, and yet, so often it can feel frustrating. I get overly fixated on the goal. Writing a novel is a massive undertaking, and the reality is it’s not always my highest priority. I have a full-time job, people who depend on me, and my own mental and physical health to take care of. Looking back at a year of fits and starts of writing makes me feel like I’m spinning my wheels in place.

Which is why a thinking day is exactly what I needed. The first thing I noticed was how mindful I felt without my phone or laptop. San Francisco is a weird place. I saw a man dressed in a bright yellow shirt and pants, like the guy from Curious George, with a parrot—later I saw him riding around on a bicycle wearing a parrot mask.

The other observation was how much easier it was to concentrate. That’s what writing is all about, really: clarifying thought. Brandon Sanderson talks about how a novel is a record of the writer’s transformation. Writing is becoming a way of defining what’s important and worth paying attention to.

All the self-help writing advice always boils down to the same sentiment: journey before destination. What my thinking day made me realize was that the writing life, and its benefits, is not exclusive to professional writers. The biggest barrier is having the time freedom to commit to the practice; let’s put that aside for now. If you’re able, you can start living the writer’s life today. You don’t need to publish or get an MFA. You just need a pen and a notebook.

We live in a culture obsessed with observable progress. Or more accurately, I’m obsessed with observable progress. I want to see my tickets move across my Kanban board into the done column. Videogames can keep me playing for hours, as long as the numbers keep going up. I track my daily word count, chart it, and review it quarterly. You could say it’s a destination over journey mindset. The inevitable outcome is burnout or quitting out of frustration. The formula for success is consistency.

I realized I had fallen into a trap while reading The Path of Excellence by Brad Stulberg. Stulberg writes, “Beware of addiction to observable progress. You get 1 percent better every day until you don’t—what happens next is key.” This is especially true for writing. What does it even mean to get better at writing? It’s so multifaceted and subjective. Stulberg’s recommendation is to pay attention to how you feel, what gives you energy, and how the actions you take impact your mood. You can get better quickly when learning a new skill, but you’ll plateau.

My thinking day left me feeling energized, my mind clear, and a sense of gratitude. It made me realize what writing is all about. I had written by hand in a notebook without tracking the word count, with no intention of publishing it anywhere. (I recognize the irony of me now turning it into a blog post.)

I didn’t realize just how much my attention had degraded because of digital distraction. While I was at university, I would go to the library and read for several hours straight. Now, when I sustain my focus for more than a few minutes, I want to reach for an LLM to make things easier, to look something up online. That being alone with my thoughts makes me so uncomfortable was a powerful signal of what needed to change. Writing is the mental workout I need to reclaim my mind from the attention economy trying to take it over.

So if you’ve also been feeling like your writing isn’t taking you anywhere. Know that being able to focus and build on ideas is a superpower is our distracted world. It’s not about word counts or publishing. It’s about finding the energy to keep going.