Just about a year ago, I took on the challenge to start writing every day for this blog. The idea was inspired by blogging masters Seth Godin and Brandon Donnelly, both of whom I read almost every day.
Not only was it a personal challenge, where I could test my mettle and experiment with new forms of writing. The main goal for me was to still produce an equal amount of content for the year measured in words, but also learn how to convey critical and interesting ideas in a much shorter format. So instead of spending a week agonizing on a medium-length piece, or even longer on a marathon-length one, I decided to try a different approach.
As it turns out, cranking out blogs every day isn't easy, requiring tons of advance planning and organizing, but with a little bit of practice, it becomes a breeze.
Here's what I've learned:
If writing becomes a regular practice, then it's very likely that you will greatly exceed your goals. My goal was to produce 3000 words a month (or 36,000 for the year), but because I could never stick to the 150/words a day average, I ended writing over 50,000 words, or an average of 4000 a month.
Streamlining is important. I used to take hours to craft a blog post, agonizing over every punctuation, word choice and hyperlink. While I still do check my work multiple times, I do so in batches and a lot faster. I've also learned to automate my newsletter, so I don't have to manually create a newsletter with a blog post every day. The magic of RSS feeds allowed me to set it up once and forget it (more on that in an upcoming post). MailChimp does the rest for me. I saved dozens if not hundreds of hours in the process.
While I've experienced a small net loss in subscribers over the course of the year, the reduced base is much more engaged with what I produce and while I don't get a ton of direct feedback, the content is largely appreciated by those who still subscribe. It created an effortless connection with clients and prospects that reinforces relationships and gives them more meaning.
Because I'm constantly in need of fresh content, this has forced me to put the production of podcasts on high-speed, and publish one every two weeks. To do so, I ditched the external audio engineer and just minimally edit my interviews. They're not quite as sharp, but in this case, done is better than perfect. I bet that you would hardly notice the difference anyway. Expects tons of great interviews in the new year.
Discipline is the single most important aspect of such a practice. I dedicate most of my Mondays to writing, editing and posting. It gets it out of the way early in the week and prevents the blog from becoming an afterthought that I rush to do on Fridays like I used to. Mentally, starting the week with a productive task is also a great way to create momentum.
If you're more inclined than me to engage with social media, that gives you a ton of content to recycle and share with your audience on these platforms. I've never been a big fan of having content living solely on someone else's platform, as that makes it subject to that platform's whims and when social media companies turn into censors, as we've seen, there is always the risk of getting shut out without a plan B. I'm a fan of plan Bs, but I digress.
I'm going to continue writing daily for the foreseeable future, as I look to capitalize on the momentum to continue growing this practice and provide you, my dear reader, with a constant stream of relevant and entertaining content.
My explicit goal for the year is to grow the subscriber count while continuing to deliver quality pieces. This is a bit terrifying, as I have no idea how one goes about meaningfully growing an audience, beyond begging, uh asking people to sign up individually.
Oh, and also smashing that 50,766 written words record set in 2020 so that someday I can write a book that no one will read.