So, I Blogged for 10 Years to Improve My English

I’ve been blog­ging for ten years — to improve my English.

Ten years ago today, I hopped on a plane to go and live in New York. 

“Go and live” was optim­ist­ic, giv­en that I had nowhere to sleep when I landed; I had to put down my agency’s address as my home address. 

The flight from Stockholm Arlanda Airport to Newark International Airport took over ten hours, so I had time to think. I thought mostly about one thing:

How much I needed to improve my English.
Finding some­place to live was a sec­ond­ary concern.

I was already an estab­lished PR pro­fes­sion­al in Sweden with reput­able exper­i­ence advising glob­al cli­ents. Like most Swedes, I spoke English well enough for every­day situations.

The issue was that much of my pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­ence ori­gin­ated from being a fast and robust writer in Swedish.

Writing well in Swedish was how it all star­ted for me. The oppor­tun­ity to make a liv­ing by writ­ing drew me into pub­lic rela­tions in the first place. 

I had this feel­ing that the team in New York were expect­ing me to do what I had been doing so well in Sweden in America. 

But I knew that my busi­ness English wasn’t up to par.

The abil­ity to express one­self cre­at­ively is born out of a sense of free­dom to exper­i­ment con­fid­ently using words and sen­tences as “will­ing” build­ing blocks. If you only have one rudi­ment­ary set of build­ing blocks, that free­dom to roam disappears.

The team in New York prob­ably had no idea how much of my use­ful­ness came from being a sol­id writer… in Swedish.

C’est la vie. English was like my non-exist­ing liv­ing situ­ation; anoth­er thing I would have to fig­ure out once the plane touched the ground. 

During that 10-hour flight, I decided to retire my Swedish blog (“Doktor Spinn”) and breathe life into Doctor Spin, a PR blog in English.

Read also: I Was Blogging Before, During, and Long After It Was Cool

Alas, I had no inten­tion of run­ning a PR blog for the sake of run­ning a PR blog. I just wanted some­where to prac­tise writ­ing busi­ness English. The pro­pos­i­tion of being indexed by search engines — and then found by inter­ested read­ers — only served to intro­duce accountability.

Friends and col­leagues thought launch­ing an English blog was a stra­tegic move. As an NYC-based PR adviser and star­tup COO, maybe blog­ging in English was a cal­cu­lated attempt at scal­ing my per­son­al brand. Of course, it wasn’t, but I nev­er cor­rec­ted any­one about this, either. 

I just kept writ­ing to improve my English.

Today, after ten years of focused effort, I declare this pro­ject finalised.

The pro­ject isn’t done because I’ve some­how learnt enough. It’s done in the sense that I can now express myself freely. I’ve reached a point of dimin­ish­ing returns, even. 

I will nev­er be as good a writer as I am in Swedish, but the con­fid­ence in using English is there now — and that was the whole point of this dec­ade-long exercise.

In any case, I’ll con­tin­ue to blog in English. Not because I must prac­tice but because Doctor Spin is a PR blog writ­ten in English now.

As I close the books on this pro­ject, do I have any insight to share with you? Well, get­ting an apart­ment in New York City took three days. “The English Project” took ten years. 

That’s just the way these things work, I suppose.

PR Resource: More Projects

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Improvement: Renaissance Projects

The Renaissance las­ted from the 14^th to the 17^th cen­tury and was a peri­od of sig­ni­fic­ant cul­tur­al, artist­ic, polit­ic­al, and sci­entif­ic rebirth in Europe. It was marked by a renewed interest in clas­sic­al art and ideas from ancient Greece and Rome.

Inspired by the Renaissance mind­set, I strive to devel­op my cre­at­ive intel­li­gence, phys­ic­al strengths, and men­tal well-being.

Better Identity

• The Ikigai Test
• My Big Five Aspects Scale Test Results

Better Thinking

• Mental Models: How To Be Better a Better Thinker
• 10 Intelligence Types: Howard Gardner’s Theory
• How To Create Knowledge
• Types of Bad Thinking Habits
• Principles of Clear Thinking
• My Mind Palace (and How It Helps Me To Think Better)

Better Skills

• 18 Months of Sudoku
• So, I Blogged for 10 Years to Improve My English
• My Photography Journey: A Descent Into Madness
• My Chess Failure: 12 Months Is Not Nearly Enough

Better Habits

• 10 Years of Annual Reviews (to be published)
• The Epic Year Approach
• Image Streaming 

Learn more: Milestones & Reviews

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PR Resource: Drafting

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Communication Skill: Drafting

Drafting, cre­at­ing, and refin­ing writ­ten doc­u­ments are fun­da­ment­al com­mu­nic­a­tion skills cru­cial in every­day life. From com­pos­ing emails and writ­ing reports to craft­ing per­son­al let­ters or social media posts, the abil­ity to draft and edit doc­u­ments ensures clar­ity, coher­ence, and effect­ive­ness in con­vey­ing messages. 

“The first draft of any­thing is shit.”
— Ernest Hemingway

Many indi­vidu­als struggle with writ­ing not because they lack ideas but because they under­es­tim­ate the power of revi­sion. The ini­tial draft is rarely per­fect; it’s through revis­ing this draft — trans­form­ing it into a second, third, or even fourth draft — that one hones the mes­sage, sharpens the lan­guage, and strengthens the over­all communication. 

Developing a habit of draft­ing and edit­ing allows for explor­ing ideas, refin­ing thought, and elim­in­at­ing ambi­gu­ity, mak­ing the final product more impact­ful and under­stood by its inten­ded audience.

To become bet­ter at draft­ing, con­sider these five tips:

• Embrace the pro­cess. Accept that draft­ing is a pro­cess that involves writ­ing, revis­it­ing, and revis­ing. Your first draft is just the begin­ning, not the end product.
• Separate writ­ing from edit­ing. Allow your­self to write freely in the ini­tial draft without wor­ry­ing about per­fec­tion. Focus on get­ting your ideas down, then shift to edit­ing mode to refine your work.
• Read aloud. Reading your draft aloud can help you catch errors, awk­ward phras­ing, and unclear areas. This prac­tice can also improve the rhythm and flow of your writing.
• Seek feed­back. Don’t hes­it­ate to share your drafts with oth­ers. Feedback can provide new per­spect­ives and insights that you might have overlooked.
• Use tools wisely. Use writ­ing and edit­ing tools (such as large lan­guage mod­els, gram­mar check­ers, or style guides) to help identi­fy areas for improve­ment. However, always apply your judg­ment to ensure sug­ges­tions align with your inten­ded mes­sage and voice.

Incorporating these strategies into your writ­ing routine can elev­ate your draft­ing skills, lead­ing to pre­cise, com­pel­ling, and effect­ive writ­ten com­mu­nic­a­tion in every aspect of your life.

Learn more: Communication Skills (That Everyone Should Learn)

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