I tried to write and publish every day for a month and this is what I learned
For the month of March, my goal was to spend time every morning writing and publishing articles. Most mornings I did indeed write, but publishing was hard.
But when I did publish, the process of both refining and the immediate feedback was invaluable instead of having a list of unfinished drafts sitting in my queue (which I still have).
I published 15 articles that included ideas in lifestyle design, travel, digital design, AI, and the future of work. See the complete list at the bottom of the post.
Here are 3 things I learned:
1. Chase curiosity to reach consistency
I found it easiest when I was writing about something I was genuinely curious or passionate about. Even when I had a schedule to write about certain topics, sometimes when I sat down I felt like writing about something else.
For example, one day I was going to write a chatGPT tutorial, but came across a podcast talking about how the future of work will be millions of small teams, instead of large enterprises, so I pivoted and wrote that article instead.
Embracing this curiosity helped keep the writing flowing.
2. Multi-platform publishing forces idea refinement
For most posts, I published to Medium, Linkedin, X, and Instagram/Facebook, and I found it an invaluable exercise to adapt the content to each platform.
First, I was forced to shorten my Medium article for LinkedIn posts, which allows up to 500 words / 3000 characters.I generally reposted my LinkedIn posts to X.
For Instagram, I’d pick an engaging image to tease the article instead of posting the copy itself. This would also be reposted to Facebook.
This was a great editing and refinement exercise, forcing me to look at my content from different angles and decide what was genuinely important for that community.
3. Writing is invaluable self-discovery, particularly when publishing
There is much said about only writing specific, high-value content to a particular audience when writing digitally, but I think that the sweet spot is actually to create a practice whereby I’m writing both for myself and others. This means some posts might be of low value to an audience, but they are invaluable to me as a writer as I discover and learn what resonates with me, particularly in the early days of writing.
The ability to self-publish regularly is an unbelievable superpower that social media and the internet have bestowed upon us. Even though it feels messy sometimes, getting feedback early is much more valuable than waiting ages to get it perfect (which will never happen anyway).
I appreciate the support of those who have provided feedback to date and I look forward to continuing on this writing journey, providing reflections and value across Pixel & Lifestyle Design… and whatever else I feel drawn to 😀
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Here are the published articles from the last 30 days. I scored 15/30 on publishing, but I’m actually pretty happy with that result 🤓
