Polyglossic is celebrating a milestone this week – 520 posts, or 10 years’ worth of weekly blog posts on all things language learning, ed tech, and habit building. 10 years! I can barely believe it myself.

And it’s a case of life imitating art (well, the art of blogging, at least). Writing about positive learning habits has helped me build my own habit of regular writing. Setting a post-a-week goal has encouraged me to explore my favourite topics more deeply, find fun ways to present them to others, and trained my brain to spot links between language and everyday life. It’s helped me distil a million disparate ideas into an educational ethos over the years – what’s worth focusing on, and what’s worth sharing with others. Writing is a powerful ideas sharpener.

The power of regular writing for recycling and reinforcing your own knowledge like this is one of the reasons I’ll always recommend a diary or blogging habit to language learners. Now, regular writing doesn’t have to mean hundreds of words every week. Don’t pressure yourself to scribble reams and reams – you’ll feel like a self-nag and put yourself off. A couple of sentences every day or two is more than enough to get going. 520 posts didn’t come from 520 bursts of pure inspiration. Most of them came from just turning up every week.

So, above all, whatever you’re writing, make it regular. When writing becomes part of your routine, a bit of your mind is always switched on to it. You’ll notice things in your day-to-day, and catch yourself thinking ah, I can write about that! Next thing, you’ll be looking up key words and expressions to express that in the target language.

That goes a long way towards giving your language project a permanent home in your brain.

And to all of you, readers – regular and new – thank you for being part of that habit-building journey. I hope you’ve found something useful in these pages, just as I’ve been learning these techniques alongside you.

Here’s to writing – the ideas sharpener. And the next 520! 🎉