I just finished the final version of the October 2021 Lessons From Mountains, Yamabushido's monthly newsletter due tomorrow. This was the 15th month we have put out Lessons From Mountains, and every time it does feel like a metaphoric mountain to cross, but one that is definitely worth it. This time around we have a special announcement that you're going to have to sign up for to see (go to our homepage or the link I put in the first sentence), and every time we collate ten things about 'the life and mindset of the Yamabushi, and more mindful ways of living and self development'.

Put simply, it can be hard to find ten items that are worth sharing each month. However, we now have a bit of a backlog now of things we can include. The items have to have some sort of practical application, which is the main reason why it is hard to find things. We also try to have a balance of different types of items, from books to videos, podcasts to magazine-style articles. Then of course they all have to relate to either mindfulness or Japan in some way or another.

This periodic collation and writing of such a niche thing is a good challenge to have. There are set parameters into what needs to go into it, and there is also that ever hanging deadline to give you the burst of energy you need to put something out there. This sort of structure is the kind of thing that forces you to produce content, and I would say it is an effective way of doing so. Once you have a structure, you also have a set of different searches you can do periodically as well to find new content, if that's the type of content you are creating.

Seth Godin is famous for posting a blog daily. In some of his podcasts he talks about how he used to post more than once a day, but that it got to be a bit too much, and that once a day seems to be the perfect amount. This suits me fine as well. The thing to do would be to find parameters or some sort of structure as well as deadlines that you can stick to. There was a month or so there when I was pumping out mountains articles weekly, but in the end that was too much, and I've fallen into a pit of despair again. Maybe twice monthly is where it's at. Although I do have to balance that with this blog and also videos, so maybe one video and one mountain blog post a month is doable, something new to try.

So, I would say to set some parameters for the type of content you want to produce, and then try to make it at as frequent a posting schedule as you can. This of course would require some trial and error, but it would definitely help in producing consistent quality content.