For the month of April, I focused on posting more content. One a day I said. Alas not everything went to plan. Like Mike Tyson said – “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”. This is me, punched in the face, writing this article for the second time after I lost an hour’s work. Here’s what you can learn from this experiment.

Schedules

It’s crappy but true.

Fail to Plan and you plan to fail.

I know this challenge would have been way better had I given myself some time to go through and write the content and give each of them the due diligence it needed.
But there is also something to be said to hold yourself to account and publish every day or stick to your guns and continue to publish.

Hell, I am hitting publish on this article one day ahead of schedule. You know what that gives me?

One day of planning for next month’s challenge.

As with working from home, I found that by creating a visual schedule, it held me to account.
My day was blocked out into manageable chunks that I know work for me.

This allowed me to focus on the most important tasks that I needed to do.

I always scheduled the heavy lifting to the first thing in the morning. That way, all the thinking and writing associated with the first draft can come straight out.
No editing, just draft. Write to your hearts content. If you edit, you will lose all those thoughts in your head. You want to get it out of your head and onto the paper.
This lead me to…

Structures

Every post I wrote, followed a structure.

The quick key takeaway that the audience needs in a short, easy to digest summary.
Then the main body with the supporting and opposing points.
A conclusion, a “so what”, if you will.

This won’t work all the time. So I would lead with a sentence or word that I want the paragraph to hold and circle back to it later. But I found another problem.

Timers

Thanks to Rob for re-introducing me to the magnificence of timers.
I would get so absorbed in the flow of writing articles, that I would often forget to actually go back and fill them.
To the point that I had so many drafts of so many articles sitting in my draft folder that it was overwhelming to go back and fill them in.

But adding a timer to the process, ensured I had a time limit and encouraged me to work against the clock.
Some of my higher viewed posts are the ones that I did with a time limit than ones where I took the time to write.

Bonus Tip: Have a song that you can play on repeat in the background.
I know it’s recommended that you should have something without lyrics as background music. But I have used my recent discovery of Jacob Collier’s rendition of “You and I” to help me get through it.

On repeat, the lyrics get drowned out and all I hear are the harmonies.

Themes

I found by having themes or as Gary Vee would call, content pillars, I am better able to focus on what I needed to post about.
Another important thing is to get feedback from your readers.
I found that a lot of people just couldn’t care less about the whole Coronoavirus thing. And there was enough negativity and anxiety inducing articles, that I shouldn’t be adding to them.
So I changed what I was covering and found more people were open to the ideas.

And that leads me nicely to the last point.

Throw out your plans AKA Adapt

Yes, I know I started off this article with informing you to have plans. Let me put this simply.
This is partially bullshit.

Another great saying from an old work place – it’s all great in theory until the rubber hits the road.

I have had this article, get lost twice.

I did a redesign of my blog and saw a sharp decline in readership over the week. Hell I am still recovering from it right now.

But. You adapt. You Survive. You Thrive. It’s just that plain and simple.

And with all things, a lot of people always look at the end goals of others and say oh wow, I wish I could do the same.
Guess what, you can.
However, do you want to? Are you willing to sacrifice other items so you can get your goal?
I already have had the anonymous people email me (thank you for the fuel and I won’t publish your details…but do respond to my emails) that it’s easy for you because you don’t have other commitments.
Well look around you, there are plenty of people in your own situation that are still managing. So why not you?
Please be real with yourself.

I know that some people have said that they struggle to do something.

Guess what – anything is a struggle. Learning something new, trying a new recipe, whatever it may be. We have been given a real golden opportunity with this slow down.

Don’t waste it. You have the time to go after what you want. So go do it. You can. Between where you are and where you want to be, is you.

Let me know if you’re keen on taking on a 30 day posting challenge. If you are, tag it with #tdt30 and I will pick it up on Instagram and Facebook (as long as the post is public).

Here’s to the next challenge!

Keep Reading.

Keep Learning.

Keep Evolving.