As I sit around, watching YouTube, occasionally getting on my phone, browsing the Internet, and checking social media I can’t help feel like I’m wasting time. And while watching TV or playing video games 24/7 might not be very productive, not everything that feels like a waste of time is. Let’s explore, shall we?

Writing

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first.

Writing is NOT a waste of time. Every English teacher will tell you that writing helps with, well, writing skills.

You learn how to speak, how to spell, how to use proper grammar, when to break language rules, and when to definitely follow language rules. As people give you feedback on your writing, you continue to learn what people understand and what they don’t, what is compelling and what is boring, when proper grammar trumps slang, and how to effectively get your point across; whether you’re being serious or humorous.

And it’s not just daily writing exercises and free writing in journals that helps build your writing skills. It’s any type of writing.

Here’s a quick list of how different types can help you accomplish different things:

• Journal Writing – jotting down thoughts and ideas, letting out steam, releasing stress, recap of your day, holding on to memories.
• Writing Stories – fictional stories can be fun to write. You can also transpose your situation to characters in a story and through writing your story you are also problem solving.
• Writing Articles – this is most likely work related, or you write with the intention of learning and possibly getting noticed or having a body of work to choose from as samples, if writing articles is something you would like to do as a job. But you probably want to write articles to spread information.
• Writing Papers – if you’re writing a paper, then you’re either a student or a scientist (among other people who write papers, including mathematicians, researchers, and analysts). Students can learn a lot from writing papers, especially if you want to go into a field where you will need to write papers, grants, articles, or even stories. And, of course, you would also be writing these papers to spread information.

Writing comics, songs, scripts, or even blogs all have their own uses; or their own way of spreading information. Sometimes that information is personal. Other times this information is meant to be disseminated to the general public or even to a private audience.

And as you saw above, writing in journals or diaries, or writing stories, songs, and poems can help you get ideas down on paper. Doing so will remove ideas from your mind so you stop thinking about them. Then you can focus on other, more important things like work or your children.

Or you may use writing as a way to let others know how you’re feeling. Perhaps talking to people about your feelings is difficult. But writing music, poems, or stories is a way you can relay your thoughts to those around you.

Even people who are no good at writing can use writing to relieve mental and physical stress.

And, well, I guess there’s not much more to say.

At first sitting around writing in blogs and journals might seem like a waste of time. It in fact is very therapeutic besides being helpful for learning how to write better.

The end?

-Diggs out

P.S. – this is most definitely NOT the best example of good writing. But hopefully it was helpful.