Tips from a serial blogger (4 years and counting)

First of all, good on you for deciding to do what is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. As it currently stands, I’m yet to make any money directly from this writing. However, there have been uncountable other benefits in my life:

Clearer thinking, better ideas, for example.

Either way, today marks four years of daily blog posts. I have zero regrets for doing this.

Although, there are a number of things I’d do differently.

Here are my top three:

1. Write for a specific audience. Not yourself.

Keep it specific, stupid.

Have someone in mind when you write. Someone other than yourself.

I only recently started writing for other people. For the longest time I thought my blog should be all about myself.

Put simply, it’s much more valuable to apply these lessons to an n greater than one. Especially if that n is already thinking these things.

In saying that, have someone specific in mind. One I have heard of is your self from five years ago.

This is perfect.

Another person is someone junior to you who could benefit from your life lessons. A niece or nephew. Your own child, perhaps.

Plus, it’s not as if these lessons don’t apply to yourself.

By focusing on the other, you make the reading more readable. You make the reading more accessible to the people who you ultimately wish to serve.

Which is what it’s all about. Writing for impact.

2. Get the bad writing out of the way. That’s how you write well.

The way you write well, is by getting the bad writing out of the way.

My writing has gotten better. I can feel it. Just read some of my older work.

I feel bad for the people reading my old posts. Now I have to try extra hard to make sure the good posts outnumber the bad. That’s the only way I can reduce the chances of people hitting those bad posts.

Well, besides deleting them, of course.

However:

I say bad, but again I have zero regrets for those posts. They were all part of the process of getting here. These posts all add up to the pursuit of better writing.

Without those posts, I’d be back at square one.

Now I’m at square 1400-something.

Put in the reps. Write every day even if it isn’t your best.

This is the guaranteed way to grow.

3. Build as little friction as possible in your writing

Build a system of pumping out an article and hitting publish without putting too much thought into it.

Easier said than done, yes.

But not impossible.

I use the Ulysses App. Have been for the past few months, and I must say, I can’t believe there was a time I didn’t use it.

These days it’s so easy to just pick up your phone whenever an idea pops into your head. Then you just need to add a few bullet points and you have the making of an article.

You need to be able to hit publish as easily as possible. Ulysses means I can do this to both my blog and medium.com at the same time.

Ulysses also means I have a back up of my posts if either of those fail. It’s like another copy of my brain. All these ideas and they are (somewhat) categorised.

The only thing left to do, is to publish them.

Which you should be doing at regular intervals.

A day is a good interval.

All up

All up, writing daily has been one of the best decisions of my life. I’m so glad I picked this up. I feel I can better communicate my thoughts concisely, and that to me is worth a million bucks. Plus, I find myself constantly thinking of the next thing to say. This has helped develop what I believe are better thought patterns.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

So remember:

1. Write for someone specific. An n of one besides yourself is a great place to start.
2. Don’t worry about the bad writing. It’s all part of a process until you get to the good stuff. Just keep at it regularly.
3. Make a system where hitting publish on the regular becomes second nature.
   

Then just watch the ideas flow (but don’t forget to hit publish).