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In the creator economy, volume wins the day.
Having a smart system in place to generate (and deliver!) that volume then becomes of utmost importance.
Before we start:
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May 1st, 2022
That was the date I truly began my creators journey.
I'd been messing with it since I built my first website in 2009. But there was a career to build, a degree to finish (while working!), a house to renovate, children to raise.
Finally, with the degree finished, career going well, and happy kids, I began prioritizing daily writing towards the ultimate goal of creating an online business.
In the 7.5 months since then I have published 68,671 words:
• 7,500 tweets
• ~150 threads
• 4 magazine articles
• 2 ghostwritten articles
• 7 weekly newsletters (including this one!)
And I'm on track to self-publish my first book next month, which will come in around 23,000 words.
Note that I am NOT a full time creator. I still work a big job that takes a lot of my time.
I've just created a smart system of content creation that allows me to get a lot done in a limited time I have.
Content Creation
There are two ways to think about content creation:
1. Bottom Up
2. Top Down
At the early stages a Bottom Up approach works well. Start with the smallest unit of an idea - the Tweet.
Write a bunch of those. Take the best ones and scale them up - the Thread.
Repeat again. Turn your best performing threads into something bigger - the Newsletter or Article.
And if you are really ambitious, compile those into a true longform piece of content - the Book.
That's exactly how my first book Peaceful Productivity came to be.
As you progress the Top Down approach becomes more efficient.
Start with a long form piece of writing - for me it's the Newsletter.
Once that is done, chop it up, do some rewording, and turn it into 1-2 threads.
Go one step further and pull out 5-7 tweets.
You may feel like you are repeating yourself at first. And you are. But this is an incredibly important step.
Remember that for every person that sees your work, thousands of others will not. But some of them WILL when you post something similar next week. And the week after.
The key to building Authority online is repetition. Keep saying the same thing in different ways.
Follow the Top Down approach and you'll have enough core content to last for a full week. Now all you need to do is deliver it to a smart schedule.
My Weekly Content Schedule
Monday - New Tweet*
Tuesday - Repurpose a Thread (>90 days old)
Wednesday - Two tweets. One new* + one to set up Thursdays Newsletter
Thursday - New tweet* + send out the Newsletter
Friday - New Thread (based on the Newsletter 3 weeks prior) + a newsletter followup tweet
Saturday - New Tweet*
Sunday - My Sunday Roundup Thread (written fresh starting the day before)
*Tweets (mostly) pulled from the Newsletter writing from previous weeks.
How long does it take to write and schedule all of this?
A typical newsletter takes an hour to write.
It then takes 20 minutes to create a thread from it. Because of how I format my newsletter I can usually get two.
With those done it only takes another 10 minutes to pull out 5-7 tweets.
So far we are at less than 2 hours of writing.
Finally, the Weekly Roundup takes another hour to write and publish.
The total weekly time commitment is a little less than 3 hours. Add another 20 minutes to schedule everything, and you'll still have a lot of time left to work on that big project.
You Do You
You might feel that 3 hours a week is too much to commit. Two comments:
First, don't compare your stage 1 to my stage 2. I have a very clear vision of where I'm taking this, and I'm treating this like a job. That means I show up every day and I do the work.
Second, you DON'T have to write this much. Figure out what you can comfortably manage and start there.
Determine when you will write, and for how long. Schedule it. Then stick to that schedule.
Next, figure out how much you can write during that time. If you type 250 words per hour and have 2 hours to write each week, then plan your schedule around 500 words.
This would be a great time to start tracking your writing stats. I've developed a custom tracker that manages this. If there is interest I'll write a breakdown of how it works in a future newsletter.
Tl;dr:
• Create a weekly creation schedule you can stick with
• Write from the Top Down for maximum efficiency
• Consistently deliver when you say you will
• Use a scheduler to automate delivery
I love Hypefury for scheduling. Here's my affiliate link if you'd like to try it out --> Try Hypefury
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I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Now go create your content schedule and get started!
Until next week.
Yours in Productivity,
Sean
P.S.
I write about Productivity to help you create space to become Prolific.
I want you to be Prolific because that will make you Profitable in todays creator economy.
My first book is coming in January. It's called Peaceful Productivity.
Make sure you are following me @SeanPHogue for the latest updates.
Your next steps:
1. Subscribe to The Lever (if you haven't already)
This covers a science-based productivity concept each week, in about five minutes. Try a free chapter of my new book when you subscribe. And if you like it...
Peaceful Productivity outlines the time-management system I've created over the years as a ship's Captain and business executive. It will help you plan, prioritize, and get more of the right things done. Also available on Amazon
This short course will teach you the fundamentals of a powerful timeblocking system to make sure you never miss an obligation and always show up prepared. Give yourself the space you need to create the life you deserve.
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