10 Reasons To Write On Medium During the Pandemic
By: Jun Wu
Tags: Writing, Writing On Medium, Pandemic, Writing Tips, Freelancing

If you are fortunate to not have too many disruptions during the pandemic, then you are lucky. Between working remotely, taking care of your family, if you have spare time, it’s a good opportunity to share your thoughts on Medium.

You can earn extra money by taking part in the Medium Partnership Program.

You can also write to sharpen your writing skills. In any job today, communication is the key. Writing well often means you’ve set the foundations of speaking well in public and meetings.

You can use the Medium app to speak your articles. It will record and transcribe instantly into the Medium editor.

Here are 10 reasons why I consistently write on Medium during this pandemic.

Social Distancing Can Mean Virtual Closeness

Writing on Medium for a year taught me that you can have a kind of virtual closeness with your readers. You may be social distancing but because you read certain types of articles or you write about certain subject matters, you establish new friendships with publication editors, fellow writers in certain topics, and your readers.

Using your comments to get to know people and their work can allow you to make discoveries. This type of interaction has brought me closer to my audience.

Bring Issues To The Forefront

In emergencies, some people might react well and others may not. When you spot injustice, inequality, and problems in our society, the impulse is for all of us to say something. If enough of us make noise about what our values are, then naturally, our democracy is reaffirmed.

But, if injustice, inequality, and issues are amplified continuously without people who care for it, then it can become cancers in our society.

This is a good time to think about things that are bothering you and write about them.

Air Your Feelings

When you are with your immediate family 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, you might feel that you are spending too much time with them. Yet, you can’t exactly air out your feelings with them in the room. Then, write them down on Medium.

You can remain anonymous on Medium. Other readers on Medium might be able to give you emotional support. Think about a virtual hug from that mom who also wrestled with tending to a husband and kids all day.

Chances you may find that your feelings are widely shared by others.

Distraction

A new hobby always distracts me from the current turmoil. Reading or writing on Medium is an easy hobby to pick up. You don’t need to buy equipment. You just have to signup for a membership and you are good to go.

You can write a few times to see if it suits you. If you have projects that you are working on in your spare time, then write about those.

For me, writing about my projects make me feel more motivated to complete my projects.

Stay In Tune With Creativity

During the pandemic, all of us are all scrambling at work. A lot of us are dealing with small projects that are repetitive but have to get done. There’s not creativity used there. We want to be working on long term projects that we have ample time to be creative in.

Writing on Medium every day can help you air that creativity. Have you tried writing a poem about your day? Have you created satire about remote work?

Sharpen Your Muscles For the Long Distance

Most often, when I write on Medium, I am sharpening my mental muscles for the long-distance journey through my projects. Last year, I was only able to write one good article a day. Now, I write at least 3 or 4 a day in different outlets.

Now, when I sit in front of my computer to work on taxes, programming, or reading academic papers, my concentration kicks in immediately. It’s because I’m now used to the routine.

Set aside one hour every day to sharpen those mental muscles, you won’t regret it.

Discover Yourself

After a whole year of writing about my journey through the last 30 years, I realized that I’m more sure of all the decisions that I’ve made. At each stage, when I evaluated why I made the decisions I made, there were reasons. I found these reasons while reflecting on them in my writing.

After writing on Medium for a year, I realized that I have a lot more passions in life and in my career than what I was limited to. We often pigeon-hole ourselves to our immediate interests because we are not meeting new people. But, on Medium, while reading about other people’s interests, you may discover that you wanted to go on adventures that you didn’t know about.

Build Habits During Uncertainty

I’ve weathered many storms in my life. During each storm, it’s best to put your head down and adjust your life toward the new normal. I take this time to instill some new habits into my routine so that no matter what happens from today onwards, I have these scheduled activities to lean on.

These activities that I defer to every single day provide a sense of safety for me during uncertain times.

If anything, I can count on my morning yoga and writing session. I can always count on my afternoon coffee.

Practice The Art of Sharing

Sharing does not come naturally for people. There’s an inherent compassion and selflessness that you have to tap into. In our capitalistic society, people often make others feel “stupid” for sharing. Knowledge sharing when you are a knowledge worker seems almost absurd to some.

But, I’ve learned in this past year that if you assume your learning is dynamic, then you will have no problems sharing. In the end, I’ve received more from the interactions when I shared than what I have shared.

In about a week of releasing an article that contains the knowledge that I share, I’ve moved onto gaining other types of knowledge. If anything, sharing is a validation of your knowledge and your experiences.

That validation gave me confidence.

Gain Mindful Space

I credit writing on Medium for me to gain a kind of mental space or clarity about my life. Every week, when I write on Medium, not only do I make sense of my thoughts, I’m also inspired by other people’s thoughts on Medium as well.

Once I put down my thoughts, I gain the space in my heart and mind to take in more experiences.

I often do yoga before and after my writing session. This is because these two activities are so similar. Putting words down often seems like a long exhale where you arrive at the destination that is yourself.