Countless times you have heard the advice: “you should write more.” It is well-meant, and almost always true. But it skips the more useful question: write what? Writing is just an act, and an act can serve very different ends. Different kinds of writing have different purposes, demand a different and particular kind of attention, and are judged by different measures of result. Lumping them together is how people end up frustrated — pouring effort into one mode while quietly grading themselves by the standards of another.
So it helps to name the modes before chasing the volume. I split my own writing into two purposes: writing to attend, and writing to understand and to transfer. The first is writing as a way of being present with your own mind; the second is writing as a way of building something durable that can travel to another person. Once you know which one you are doing, the question “am I doing this well?” finally has an answer. (A distinction I first picked up from a friend’s notes.)