Abbie,Sophia,and Sarah's goofy advice

All very benevolent but still, given the current climate, it seems bonkers to invest seven years of education into a non-profit scheme, subsidising your rent by tutoring maths when you could be making a packet in the City. “I know,” he laughs. “All my friends are bankers and I’m their poor student mate. But it’s my choice.” And, frankly, there are enough bankers to go round, allowing people like Dr Broni-Mensah to turn staggeringly obvious ideas into life-changing schemes.

‘The lies of a newspaper in London can get a bloke’s head caved-in down an alley in Bradford.’

People have asked me many times to say what, exactly, is the point of this project. I’ve always had a fascination with the ways that creative people balance inspiration and discipline in their working lives. It’s easy to be energized when you’re in the grip of a big idea. But what do you do when you don’t have anything to work with? Just stay in bed? Writers have this figured out: it’s amazing how many of them have a rigid routine. John Cheever, for instance, used to wake up every morning in his New York City apartment, put on a jacket and tie, kiss his wife goodbye, and take the elevator down to his apartment building’s basement, when he would sit at a small desk and write until quitting time, at which point he’d go back up. (When it was hot in the basement, he’d strip down to his underwear to work.)

The only way to experience this kind of discipline is to subject yourself to it. Every student who has taken this project had a moment where the work turned into a mind-numbing grind. And trust me: it won’t be the first time this happens. The trick is to press on. For each new day (whether it’s Day 28, Day 61, even Day 100) brings with it the hope of inspiration.

If The New York Times ever strikes you as an abstruse glut of antediluvian perorations, if the newspaper’s profligacy of neologisms and shibboleths ever set off apoplectic paroxysms in you, if it all seems a bit recondite, here’s a reason to be sanguine: The Times has great data on the words that send readers in search of a dictionary.