How I Started Substack As a “Tiny Experiment”

My evolving writing practice.

Sometimes I Need a Longer Ending

I’m not great at goodbyes, they make me question feelings and decisions. So when I faced the final months of grad school I started to realize I wasn’t just sad about it ending, I was also feeling afraid to finish my thesis. Beyond whether or not I thought “it” was ready, was a nagging sense that I didn’t feel ready.

There were a couple of reasons for this. In the final months of what should have been my last semester I had a realization that while this project would come to an end, I was still going to be in the middle of the care work that inspired it. I'd still be playing a supporting role in my now adult daughter’s healthcare which meant I was writing from inside the story and I worried that my work didn’t go far enough to outline this overlapping space I call extended parenting.

I also found myself watching people finish their degrees and go through a bit of a let down period. This seems like a perfectly normal response to when all that go go go adrenaline stops pumping, but I knew that if I didn’t find some kind of balance I’d head straight for burnout.

Reflecting on what I needed to finish well I came up with three supportive activities:

1. First I asked for an extension, two actually. Instead of rushing to finish in the same semester as my daughter who was graduating High School, I decided to slow down and enjoy this time with her. I still worked on my thesis, but I did it one hour at a time, planning in advance which steps needed to be tackled and in which order. Acceptance of my time and energy was key, and writing became a daily practice (complete with my light a candle ritual—current secular candle is Jane Austen) that I began to enjoy again.

2. I started napping. 20 minute power naps were like little resets for my attention and focus. After the rest, I took another ten minutes to think through what would make me feel accomplished that day, often heading back to activity with clarity and motivation.

3. And I connected with community. I started writing with London Writers Salon [1] a few years ago and many of my class papers were written in their co-writing sessions. In my final semester, I joined the 100 days of writing 2024 cohort and wrote daily while engaging with others in the community, giving and receiving motivation, and generally feeling connected to why I started the work in the first place.

A New-ish Idea

My attention to Acceptance, Rest, and Community didn’t stop when I submitted my thesis. I kept writing almost everyday, I just needed a new focus. I started using writing prompts posted by writers on their Substacks. I found that no matter the prompt, everything I wrote led me back to themes from my thesis. I knew there was a lot more I wanted to say around care and caregiving, and engaging with other substackers made me feel like this would be a great platform to explore these themes in bite size portions.

I shared the idea of starting a Substack with a co-hort of Mapping Your Path—a 3 month community workshop that has become my self-care space and where ideas come to percolate and expand [2]. As soon as I made the idea public, the magic of the universe took over. Anne Stark Ditmeyer, Mapping Your Path creator and guide, sent me a video of her walking through the back of the site which made it super easy to get started. Then I received a message telling me I won a prize for finishing my 100 days of writing. I couldn’t believe it when one of the choices was a Start Your Substack workshop.

With everything pointing to yes, I resurrected the Observing Participant name from my old blog and sat down to brainstorm topic ideas. Using a mind map model I started with one question, “what do I want to write about?” and I filled the page! I could easily see that everything would fit under the umbrella of care.

Mind-mapping writing ideas

A Small Test (Tiny Experiment)

I was excited! I had a focus, but honestly I wasn’t sure if I was ready to commit to a long term project so I decided to run a small test. My plan was to post once a week for twelve weeks. But, it wasn’t enough to just post. I wanted to learn, so I kept track of the thoughts I was having about the experience in a Google doc I titled field-notes. This was just my process, I didn’t think about it as a study until half way through my test.

This is when I learned about neuroscientist and writer Anne-Laure Le Cunff and her new book tiny experiments [3]. I first heard about Le Cunff’s ideas to shift from goal setting and instead focus on tiny experiments during a conversation she had with the London Writer’s Salon in late February [4]. This all aligned so much with what I was doing with the test. Once I read her book I adopted her more formalized feedback framework of plus, minus, next, which is organized to look at accomplishments, challenges and actions.

Field-notes for Observing Participant test / tiny experiment

Le Cunff’s ideas energized me and helped me reconnect with why I studied anthropology in the first place. The way I set up my test is what Le Cunff calls a pact; it’s a tiny experiment with the purpose of collecting data. As an anthropologist I could see I was taking a critical view of where I was and experimenting with the possibilities of what could come next.

Here is a small list of what I’ve learned so far:

• I like to feel an energy about the piece I’m writing and I want to be excited about sharing it.

• To feel comfortable posting a piece will take me at least 8 hours of writing and editing time.

• I’m often inspired about what is on social feeds (or in the news) on any given week. I’m keeping a thread of notes on my phone and have a running list of half written ideas in a google doc. I haven’t even scratched the surface.

• Posting once a week works for me, but I would like to experiment with different themes, length of posts, and expand my use of Substack’s tools.

• I could use a better research and organization system

• Connecting with readers is so exciting.

• I’ve been working on a as-long-as-it-gets-posted-by-end-of-day-Sunday plan, it might be helpful to have a publishing day to structure around. I went back and looked at my publishing days and I posted on a Friday (five) the most versus Thursday (three) which I thought would be the most posted day.

I Want to Keep Going

Mostly I’ve learned that I want to keep going with Observing Participant.

I’m thrilled with myself and it felt great to complete the test / tiny experiment. I celebrated by buying a new book shelf and have been organizing and flipping through favorite books all week.

Thinking about Acceptance, Rest, and Community and how I continue to engage with this framework is helping me think more broadly about what is next and how I can best show up for it.

Taking time to reflect and reset has been a great way to think a little deeper about the themes I want to share here and looking back over 12 weeks of posts feels incredibly empowering.

I’m not 100% sure what my next tiny experiment will be but I remain excited and the whole process has removed a ton of pressure to have it all figured out.

What about you? What tiny experiment could you try to help move you forward on an idea or project you’ve been thinking about?

With care,
Tami

Side Notes:
[1] London Writer’s Salon
[2] Mapping Your Path
[3] tiny experiments
Le Cunff, Anne-Laure. Tiny experiments: How to live freely in a goal-obsessed world. New York: Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2025.
[4] #135: Anne-Laure Le Cunff — The Science of Creativity: Using Tiny Experiments to Unlock Growth, Learning, and Better Writing