I have started a new project which I think has a lot of promise!

I have been reading The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin for the past few days and it has inspired me to do a number of things, Starcraft related and otherwise. One of these things was to begin writing down my thoughts on each of the games I play. Waitzkin talks about doing this for all of his pursuits and how it helped him in the learning process. At first I thought this was overkill but the more I thought about it the more I felt like giving it a shot.

So far i’m finding that I am thinking a lot more analytically about my games and that making myself write down my thoughts about each game is forcing me to develop my ideas a lot more. It is quite easy to think something, like “Walling off with Gateways and Cannons really helped in that PvZ” and then forget it and not really learn much from the lesson. The act of writing this thought down really helps to solidify this lesson and I am even finding that I will sometimes take another step in the analysis, “The mineral investment in walling off with Gates and Cannons made me quite defensive in the mid-game, but the extra production and counter-attack defence really put me in a strong position in the late-game”.

To give this project the best chance of working I set myself out a few guidelines:

My entries had to be simple, no long winded analysis. Make an entry after every game. Read back over the days games when I am finished.

The first one was hard since I am used to writing full length articles, to make this easier on myself I decided to host the journal on Tumblr rather than this site. Doing so gave me a separate place that was much less formal. If your going to start doing this I suggest having a place to write that is separate from everything else, a place that is just for Starcraft.

The second point was easier than expected. It seems that taking the time after each game to write out a few thoughts has given me a break and a chance to think things through. I don’t know if I have been playing better, but I certainly feel like i’m learning a lot more and that is the main goal after all.

To organise all of these entries I am using two things:

Some basic Journal software – I am using Memoires but anything that can support multiple entries and that is organised by date will work. Having a search function is handy for going back over your notes. A publishing platform – I am using Tumblr because it connects with Twitter very well and is fairly simple to use.

You can check out my Starcraft journal entries at my Tumblr or by following me on Twitter. If you are interested in doing a similar project let me know, I would love to hear about your experiences!