11 exciting 90-day challenges for daily writers

Writing every day has been one of the best habits for my life.

I’ve stuck to this about 95% of the time for the last 15 years.

But maintaining this kind of commitment becomes a lot more interesting when you give yourself something tangible to aim for.

I like three-month objectives because they can be juicy enough to significantly impact my life while being within reach.

If you’re currently — or aspiring to write every day — here are eleven ideas for writing objectives to motivate the pants off you:

90-day personal story challenge.

Write one personal story every day — an event from your past, a lesson learned or a defining, stand out or emotional moment.

You’ll have 90 personal essays and posts to expand your brand by the end.

These also act as a personal memoir collection and form of written therapy and exploration.

90-days of free writing.

If you find it hard to get into the daily writing routine, it’s likely because you’re putting on too much pressure to write well.

With free writing, there are no rules. You just write a certain number of words each day, even if it comes out all gobbledegook.

Focus on getting words out onto the page, full stream-of-consciousness output for 90 days in a row. Now you have a writing habit.

All that’s left to do is translate that habit into regular publishing.

Niche ebook challenge.

Write a 25,000-word niche ebook in three months by writing 300–500 words daily on a specific topic.

Start with a clear problem you know you can solve and have this book be the solution.

At the end you’ll have a book you can sell on Amazon, Audible or even turn into a higher-ticket course you can sell forever.

You can see an example of one of mine on self-respect here.

90-days of mini-stories.

Write a 100–500-word mini-fiction story every day.

This stretches your creative and writing skills and benefits your non-fiction as well as your fiction muscle.

At the end, you can make a selection and present it in a story collection book.

10X content challenge.

Instead of writing short posts each day, write a long-form essay of 1500–3000 words each week.

You’ll have twelve high-value essays that can become a book or a series of quality blog posts that build your authority.

Mini-course creation.

For my paid Ember upgrade newsletter subscribers, I release a brand-sparkling new mini-course each month on a range of topics related to mindset, productivity and writing.

They range from 1500 to 9000 words each, hosted in Notion.

You can create 1–3 little written courses each quarter to sell to your subscribers.

90-day contrarian writing challenge.

Ideas that go against the grain very often do well.

Each day, pick a widespread belief and argue against it. Or present a solution in an uncommon way that few discuss. Developing a counterintuitive approach to solutions is one of the best skills a writer can develop.

Doing this ninety times will put you in the top 1% of writers if executed well.

Write 90 listicles.

In 2021, I wrote over a hundred listicles for Twitter threads in a row.

This grew my account by over 75,000 followers in a short span.

Listicle articles often do well because people enjoy the bite-size, digestible approach to reading. This commitment forces you to get creative and disciplined about writing on a wide range of ideas.

Don’t be afraid to repeat ideas often here.

Write the fiction novel you’ve been dreaming of writing.

Many of us would love to write fiction but hold off on doing it because it seems like there are more pressing things to prioritise.

What if you made working on your novel each day a non-negotiable? You can start with something shorter, like a novella of 20,000 words, but still substantial.

Make the three-month commitment, and write daily towards your novel.

The 90-day repurposing challenge.

Take one of your old articles, essays, or posts each day and rewrite it in a fresh, deeper, or more compelling way.

You can also take, for example, a tweet you shared and turn that into an expanded article.

This is a challenge that embraces re-using older works and breathing new life into them, creating huge leverage.

3 months of short-form writing and publishing.

This is a great one if you’re overwhelmed at the idea of writing a lot each day, and if you genuinely lack time to write.

Write something short, and publish it daily, no matter what.

For example, this can be a tweet or a 150-word LinkedIn post. Watch as your skills improve and your brand grows.

Your next step: pick one of the above challenges and make a commitment. Put it in your calendar. Find an accountability partner and do whatever it takes to make this one thing happen.

See you at your writing desk!

Alex

If you’d like further support, where I show you the 16 secrets I learned over 15 years of online writing to take your writing to even higher levels, you’ll want my Online Writing Alchemy course.

The course shows you everything you need to know to write powerfully so you grow an online tribe of fans and buyers.

Learn more about that here.

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