This blog recently crossed the 1000 post mark.
After publishing 760 of these blog posts in a row, I thought of sharing lessons I have learned along the way.
Sharing with the hope, that they will help you, if you want to build a similar writing habit.
You can also use these ideas if you make videos, or want to do podcasts.
13 Tips on Building a Writing Habit
1/ Decide and don’t second guess your decision.
2/ Start small and go from there. My daily writing habit started with a month-long experiment.
3/ Choose your publishing cadence that works for you. You can post weekly or twice a week.
Twice a month or once a month is also ok. But do at least once a week if you want to build an audience on the back of your writing.
4/ Keep a buffer of ideas to write about. I add mine to a running Google doc. This makes sure that you are never short of ideas to write about.
And when times of publishing come close, work through the posts and start working on those drafts that you want to publish next. This way you can think more about what you are going to publish, while you are away from your notebook or laptop.
5/ Carve out time for writing, because writing like any creative pursuit needs focus and for focus you need an uninterrupted chunk of time.
When you are pressed for time, learn to use short windows of time available. I have taken several hours or even a day to write a blog post and also done it in 10 minutes flat depending on how much time was available.
6/ The best way to build a writing habit is to write daily because this makes sure that your writing muscles don’t atrophy. If you can’t write daily, due to being busy at work, write two-three times a week. If you are in a job and can’t find time during the week, set aside a weekend morning or an entire day to write.
7/ Either do it first thing in the morning or the last thing you do in a day. Both times are distraction free so it helps.
8/ Don’t worry about doing a particular word length or format. Write as much as little as you have to say about a topic.
9/ Also don’t box yourself in a niche. Write about whatever inspires you at a particular moment.
10/ To make it easy, write about your conversations, purpose, or the advice you give.
Even better write about something you want to learn about. If you start today, in about 2-3 years time of learning and writing about a topic consistently, you will be able to call yourself an expert.
10/ Get an accountability buddy. My friend Niklas Göke and I buddied up several years ago and it kept us on track.
11/ This may not be for everybody but for some external motivation share what you write on social media or build an email list around your writing. Getting likes, and more email clicks will keep you motivated.
12/ Invest time in thinking and planning. And don’t discount the power of outlines. Always outline your writing before you start writing. Great if you do it in advance. It cut shorts the time you invest in writing.
13/ If you want to publish daily, the secret is to write your blog posts in advance and queue them up in advance. So whenever you get time, write more than your daily quota and set additional posts to be published in future.
That is how I wrote and published more than 1000 blog posts.
That is how Seth Godin has published 8000+ blog posts on his blog.
We started and then didn’t stop.
And, that is how everyone other frequent writer and creator does it.
