The 5 Types of Posts in my Draft Folder — Learning from Abandoned Work
Looking back at some of these drafts, I wish I had used the energy I spent writing them to document my journey rather than describe a destination I hadn’t even reached.
I currently have 44 unpublished drafts in Medium. I was browsing through them today to find something to post when I decided to write about the words I abandon.
The topics of those posts I never posted are all over the place — one’s about what it’s like to feel homesick for barbeque while living in Europe, another explains why I read about atrocities, and there are about a dozen aborted attempts to have something original to say about outrage culture — but what these posts have in common is that I seem to discard them for the same reasons again and again.
The Half-Baked Hot Take
I rush to the keys in a frenzy over some pressing current event, but I don’t stay interested or the topic doesn’t stay relevant long enough for me to follow through and finish the post.
Going back through these drafts, sometimes I’ll find a clever phrase I want to use later, or I’ll discover something more interesting to write about when I follow the thread of the initial topic. But usually, I leave these posts in the bin and thank my lucky stars I don’t have to churn…
