Feed the Flame 🔥
Turning a single spark into a self-sustaining blaze of progress
One kind of Fuel: The Quiet Power of Ritual.
Skim a few pages of Daily Rituals and you stumble on small, almost mundane scenes—Auden setting his watch five minutes fast; Haruki Murakami lacing up for a daily 10K; Gerhard Richter punching the studio clock at nine. None of them would claim that routine is the fire. Yet each hint that a repeatable pattern can keep yesterday’s spark from going cold:
“A solid routine saves you from giving up.” — John Updike
“The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism.” — Haruki Murakami
Rituals aren’t the only way to feed a project’s flame—serendipity, collaboration, even strategic pauses can add heat too. But a simple, self-chosen cadence is one fuel source we can control. In the sections that follow we’ll explore how (and when) to use it—alongside other combustibles—to keep momentum rising without slipping into dogma or drag.
Following lines reveal a proven recipe for momentum:
Guard the routine – it stops the glowing coal from cooling.
Hunt ideas proactively – fresh oxygen for the fire.
Let repetition entrance you – deep focus turns sparks into steady heat.
In this edition we’ll show how to design such rituals—small, renewable logs you can toss on yesterday’s embers—so the blaze you lit last week doesn’t fizzle, but compounds into lasting, creative warmth.
Three Uncommon Fuels to Keep the Fire Alive
Framed Friction
Small, intentional struggles release information you can reuse.
Think of Josh Waitzkin’s habit of “investing in loss”—deliberately entering positions where he’s likely to fail in order to learn faster. Pick a bite-size challenge each week that’s just outside your comfort zone and capture the lessons immediately.
Bias Awareness
Your brain burns energy fighting its own shortcuts. Spot the bias, name it, and redirect that energy outward. Buster Benson’s Cognitive-Bias Cheat Sheet distills 200+ biases into four root causes—keep it handy and run quick “bias checks” before big decisions.
Daily Emptying
Creative energy is perishable: spend it or lose it. Todd Henry’s mantra in “Die Empty” is to finish each day with as little un-expressed insight as possible. A quick voice memo, a sketch, or a rough paragraph is enough to move air over yesterday’s coals.
Quick Reflection
A spark only lasts if you feed it.
Pick one project that feels alive.
Choose one fuel for the next week:
Tiny challenge (friction)
Fast bias check
Daily “empty” of ideas
Test it for seven days.
Watch the flame. If it grows, keep going; if not, swap the fuel.
What will you try tomorrow?
Looking Ahead
Next Sunday we’ll explore Wind & Barriers—how to harness external forces (networks, distribution, serendipity) without letting them blow your flame out.
Spread the Blaze 🔥
Forward this issue to a friend who’s sitting on a glowing idea.
More sparks → bigger bonfire.