What if I told you that there is a way to write consistently without burning yourself out?
You want to be consistent with your writing and publish a blog post or a tweet thread regularly.
But you find it hard to stick to your writing habit.
2 Reasons Why You Might Not Be Writing Consistently
1. It’s possible that you don’t commit to writing consistently when you don’t strongly define your ‘why’.
Ask yourself why you want to develop a writing habit, how it benefits you, how it will help you in the future, and why it matters to you in 5 years.
2. You might also be inconsistent when you don’t have a system that works for you.
Ask yourself at which stage of writing do you find it difficult? Coming up with the ideas to write about? Editing your draft? Overwhelmed by the thought of hitting the publish button?
Btw, check out Writing OS — A Notion Dashboard to help you write consistently and go from idea to publishing 10x faster!
Reflecting on these questions can give you answers and solutions you wouldn't have otherwise considered.
Myth: You should write every single day to become a better writer.
Dictionary meaning of Consistent: Marked by harmony, regularity, or steady continuity.
It does not say "consistency = daily".
It’s about writing and publishing at regular intervals.
It’s about finding a frequency or cadence that works for you and your lifestyle.
Create habits around your lifestyle. Not the other way around.
Not every one of us wants to become a published author or a full-time writer.
Some of us prefer to simply enjoy writing, express our thoughts regularly, and hopefully become better writers over time.
3 Reasons why writing or publishing something isn’t as easy as one might think.
Acknowledging why writing is a difficult habit for you will solve half the problem.
1. Putting yourself out there can be scary.
You’re essentially putting an intimate part of yourself out there, your thoughts.
It’s not an easy thing to share your thoughts and your opinions with the world and be vulnerable.
2. It’s easy to judge you.
It's not easy to be open to any feedback you might get from a stranger.
We cannot control what others think of you but we can control your writing skills and how you express your thoughts.
Getting feedback from others can help you improve your writing.
Keep the feedback loop as short as possible.
3. You have no idea if what you write is worth reading.
When you’re uncertain about things, you don’t feel like putting an effort into it.
A successful blog post includes 8 steps:
Coming up with an idea
Research (optional)
Writing the first draft
Editing
Final draft
Publishing
Distribution
Re-purposing (optional)
I mean, why go through all that if you’re not sure whether what you're going to write is worth reading?
Now that we know why maintaining a consistent writing habit is challenging, let's explore some practical tips for developing that habit.
4 Actionable Steps To Build A Consistent Writing Habit
1. Collect Ideas
Create a system to capture ideas and inspiration.
If you don’t know what to write about, you’ll be doomed to face that classic “blank paper”.
How to become an idea machine?
→ Spend 5 - 10 minutes every day coming up with ideas for your next amazing blog post or “viral” tweet thread.
→ Make it easy to collect ideas. Pen and paper are the best tools for collecting ideas for some people. Others may benefit from digital tools such as Keep Notes, Roam, Obsidian, Notion, etc.
Example: I collect my ideas in Keep Notes.
It’s fast, reliable, simple. Its only job is to act as an idea repository.
→ One foolproof method to collect ideas: What questions do people ask you in your Twitter DMs? What solutions do they seek from you?
Example: I often get 3 questions:
How to grow a newsletter?
How to be consistent with my newsletter or writing?
How to use Notion to build my info product?
→ Use Idea Generator. It’s FREE! It generates 80+ ideas based on what type of content you want to create and the topics you want to write about.
→ Other practical ways to find ideas:
Twitter search: Use Twitter search to keep an eye on what questions people are asking and what they’re talking about in your niche.
Reddit: It's a goldmine for ideas. Just search for the topic you're interested in, and you'll see hundreds of questions from real people seeking answers.
Questions during a webinar: Pay attention to the questions that people ask the speaker after a webinar ends.
Slack, Discord: Communities are best kept secrets and they often have lots of great ideas to write about.
2. Validate Ideas
When you don't validate your idea, it appears daunting. There is no way to tell whether or not it is worth your time.
Like I said before, for any form of digital writing, regardless of whether it's a tweet or a blog post, these are the steps one usually follows:
Coming up with an idea
Research (optional)
Writing the first draft
Editing
Final draft
Publishing
Distribution
Re-purposing (optional)
It is important to break down these tasks into smaller, more actionable todo’s.
The first important step is to validate your idea.
Create a Minimum Viable Post (MVP) for your blog post. Check whether readers would find it interesting.
Example:
I created an MVP in a tweet format before committing to writing my January Creator Income Report. I got 5+ interested people under the thread.
Bonus: If somebody replied, ask questions about what the person wants to read about in the blog post.
It also prevents you from facing a blank page when you decide to write a tweet thread or a blog.
3. Write effectively
To write faster and still maintain the right structure, you must invest time in creating a system that works for you.
There are many templates that can be used to create Tweets, Blog posts, LinkedIn posts, and other social media posts.
Maintain a swipe file of successful tweets and blog post formats.
Observe what’s working for others. It makes no sense to re-invent the wheel when you're just getting started and trying to form a habit of writing regularly.
Use tools like Writing OS or Hypefury to come up with ideas for your blog articles and tweets.
So far, we’ve learned how to validate ideas and use templates for the validated ideas to write effectively.
The only thing left to do now is to sit down and actually write.
Can't set aside a separate time to write? Manage your energy, not your time.
Use tools like Typefully or Hypefury to schedule your tweets. Your blogging software to schedule blog posts.
Make sure you get the most out of your online presence by sharing posts when your audience is most active.
4. Publish
Remember how we validated our idea with a tweet? How others have commented under that post expressing interest to read those blog posts?
Now, once you publish the blog post, go to these interested people who commented under your tweet and personally share the link with them.
This way, you don't have to release your article or tweet thread to crickets.
Example:
Hit that “Publish” button more often!
Writing OS
I created Writing OS — A Notion Dashboard to help you maintain a system for all your writing needs. Go from Idea to Publishing content 10x faster with Writing OS.
Who’s this for?
You're just starting your writing journey.
You need evergreen writing templates that help you publish in a FEW HOURS!
You want to start using the right tools without wasting hours of research.
You need a plan to consistently write online.
You need monetization strategies to earn your first $1 online.
What’s inside Writing OS?
Industry's Best Writing Tools and how to use them
Frameworks and Writing Guides to improve your writing and grow organically
80+ Writing Prompts when you're stuck
Idea generator for your next amazing article
Evergreen Writing Templates
Content Calendar to stay on track
Monetization Strategies to accelerate your writing career
