How to Establish a Writing Routine

I write every day for 90 straight minutes. But this would be impossible without this simple 3-minute habit: I don't: • Wake up • Open a blank doc • And start typing If I did, the dreaded blinking cursor on the blank page would crush me. So here's my secret: My morning writing sessions start the night before. Every night before I go to bed, I take out a journal, set a 3-minute timer, and do the following 3 steps: • Write down 1 idea that's top of mind to write about • Brain dump 10 bullet points on that idea without judgment • Close my journal and go to bed Just like that, tomorrow's writing process has begun. And this nightly brain dump makes the next day's writing effortless for 3 reasons: 1. Brain dumping eliminates friction. Waking up to a brain-dumped list of bullets means I never stare at a blank page in the morning – which means it's easy to get started. I can gain momentum quickly, dropping straight into flow. 2. Brain dumping allows my subconscious to work overnight. Maybe it's a bit "woo woo," but I always wake up with a better grasp of the idea I went to bed thinking about. My brain makes connections overnight, leading to unique insights I never would have thought of while awake. 3. Brain dumping clears my head before bed. Often times, I'll brain dump on more than just the idea I want to write about the next day. I take anything that's on my mind and dump it onto the page – which leads to relaxed & restful sleep. Boom – that's it. Brain dumping is the simple 3-minute habit I do every night before bed that makes writing the next day effortless. Give it a try and let me know how it goes for you!

As we enter a new year, many of us are setting goals to write more and create more content. As someone who has been writing consistently for the past decade, I wanted to share some strategies that have helped me in my writing journey, particularly in a professional context. First and foremost, I emphasize the importance of collecting ideas. These ideas can come from anywhere - opinions, statements of fact, interesting factoids, statistics, or even visual content such as charts and graphs. These are things from X or books or Reddit or whatever. I use an app called “Email Me” to quickly email myself these ideas and then compile them into a single note with a headline that inspires me to explore the topic further. You should allow yourself to write things that are both big and small. But particularly, it’s great to give yourself permission to do much shorter pieces - tweets or LinkedIn posts - and they can even be a few lines. The frequency of creating helps you build the muscle for more later. Short helps you get over perfectionism, or a feeling of imposter syndrome, etc The idea of “templates” is useful too - these are commonly repeating versions of posts that you can repeat, over and over, that always generate interesting content. Here’s some examples: - reviews of books - quotes from podcasts/articles - lessons learned from past projects - Q&A with a colleague/friend - top links about a particular topic - your answer about a particular topic - reflections on the past year/quarter - a factoid/statistic you found surprising Setting aside dedicated time for writing is also crucial. I find that scheduling 60 to 90 minutes, particularly in the morning when I'm fresh, helps me focus and eliminates distractions. I own a whole series of distraction free devices - I wrote my book on a dedicated laptop for writing that has nothing installed on it besides Ulysses, a writing app, and a browser. I also lock my phone into a plexiglass container with a timer to force myself to stay off my entertainment apps 😂 In addition to these strategies, I've found that leveraging technology, such as using AI for brainstorming and voice-to-text apps, has been incredibly helpful in enhancing my writing process. I found chatGPT to be a strong brainstorming tool - just say something like, “I have X opinion, make a list of ideas that align, starting with Y and Z.” Then if you want more ideas, ask it for more. The hit rate sometimes isn’t great but you curate things down and then use that for your topic sentences for what you’re going to write. Voice-to-text is useful as well since it’s often easier to talk than it is to write. So if you ramble for 5-10 minutes there’s tools like Oasis AI that will clean it up into acceptable prose, which you can edit more later Hope that helps! Anything I’m missing on the list? Would love to hear from y’all!

The third time was 'the charm' for me... after failing fast in two prior attempts to start a daily writing habit for one month. Do you have a new habit you'd like to make stick? ***5 things that made it possible for me to FINALLY stick with my new habit*** 1- Daily 'sacred' hour devoted to my new habit • Choosing this time = commitment and increased odds I would actually write. • My best time of day to write is very early because (1) I am never interrupted and (2) I am most focused + creative then. • This is just one of the genius ideas of the #ship30for30 writing course run by Dickie Bush 🚢 and Nicolas Cole 🚢🏴☠️. 2- Habit stacking - I ate breakfast ONLY AFTER I posted • I always eat the same breakfast, same time. I 'stacked' my new writing habit with that engrained habit. With a twist - I had to write first, then eat! • You must re-read James Clear's fabulous book #AtomicHabits for more! 3- Cohort support - Started my habit with 1k other people • Learning the daily digital writing habit with a cohort = support, motivation, new friends 4- Visual tracker - Not 'breaking the chain' motivated me immensely • Checking off that box after I wrote/posted was a HUGE motivator. See image. • Eying the 30 day tracker on my desk reinforced my success + kept me writing. 5- Mindset - I believed writing daily would blast me out of feeling stuck* • When I feel stuck - taking on a new challenge re-connects me with myself. • It worked! I'm back to being ridiculously curious, wildly enthusiastic and sharing "3 tips on how to do... all sorts of things better." FOR ALL OF US sticking with a new habit feels good + leads to great things. What new habit would you like to start today? It's 30 days away. This is Day 30 of my 30 day writing sprint... I posted every day and I'm not stopping. 😁 💪

Yesterday Anthousa Valstein asked how I write a new post...       Every      Single          Day (I'm embellishing a little for emphasis.) 😇 Here's my answer in the form of a story! I once struggled to write consistently on my novel, waiting for the Muse to visit before writing. This, dear reader, was a disaster. It took me years to finish a single draft. That, clearly, wasn't going to work. A friend of mine tried a writing experiment where he wrote every day using the iOS app Streaks. And it worked! So I tried it myself. The first two weeks were hell, but I kept at it until I got into the groove. At first, I wanted to hit 27 straight days, then 50 then 100 then 365, I wrote 'The End' on my 13th draft after 520 straight days. I learned that writing something, even just a paragraph, even just a 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, helped me develop a habit of writing. I learned that writing every day 𝘳𝘦𝘸𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘺 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘴 so when I sat down to write I... • fell into Flow 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 • stayed in Flow 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 • delved into Flow 𝗱𝗲𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗿    But that was fiction. And this is LinkedIn. And there's a big difference between the two writing styles. In December, when Lara Acosta challenged me to write my own content (instead of Resharing), I took that to heart. I wanted to see what affect writing daily would have on business storytelling. Since December 2nd, by writing every day I've learned: • what 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 and what 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 • developed a 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 I didn't used to have • how to write both 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿 (see my post from March 18th) and 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 (see March 17th) depending on the needs of the post tl-dr: how do I stay consistent? 1. I've gamified my writing to level up faster. 2. I want to gain Followers, develop leads, and increase my wordsmithing skills on the platform. 3. I know where I want to end up, and developing the habit of daily writing for this season will help me get there. In short... pure, cussed stubbornness. 😆 > What's your favorite writing hack?