Do These Things to Be a Stupidly Productive, Insanely Impactful Writer

That has the power to reach millions of people online.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat on Unsplash

Writing online completely transformed my life.

It’s by far the best decision I’ve ever made. It makes me want to shout from the rooftops about it because I genuinely believe if you’re not doing it, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

What stops us from writing online?

• Not having enough time

• Pain in the butt critics

• A lack of ideas

Let’s solve each of these and more so you write a lot of content and make an impact through the power of written words that haven’t stopped being a big deal for centuries.

Create a smart process

None of us have time to write. We work jobs full of time thieves. Or we simply think we have more time than we do. Spontaneous writing is a disaster. It achieves nothing.

You need a process to write regularly. The consistency is what turns this silly little habit into the one thing that completely rewrites the rules of your career and gives you opportunities that leave others going “how’d she do that amigo?”

Choose a day each week. Choose a time. Choose a place. Choose a length.

Then write like your life depends on it. Publicize when you will be writing. Add it to all of your calendars. Tell your spouse. Tell your kids. Tell your grandmother. Tattoo the date and time on your forehead, despite the job-limiting consequences (joking with this one).

My initial process was a no-brainer: write every Saturday morning at 10 am for one hour, in my bedroom, using my 2012 Macbook. I edited every article after the fact, when my head was clear from the story. I then published the article on a Wordpress site called Addicted2Success and moved on with life. By practicing disassociation from the end result you’re able to write a lot more content.

Practice inbox go away

Good luck trying to write when your email inbox is open – or any social media app inbox for that matter.

Your inbox is where your attention goes to die.

Clear your writing computer of all the distractions. Go to Settings or System Preferences on a Mac and turn off every single notification. None of it is urgent.

What is urgent is that you write your vision into reality, so you can experience the feeling we online writers who’ve been doing this for the last 5+ years experience daily. The feeling that makes you smile and go “I fucking love this.”

Distraction-free writing is essential.

Don’t read comments if they mess with your head

The critic’s comments get inside your head. They stop you from writing. You start adding disclaimers. The true you in your writing is lost. It’s one reason I am writing right here. I want creative freedom to give it to you straight, without all the filters and middlemen getting in the way of the message.

If you read your critics for too long, you end up becoming them.

Don’t forget that. You don’t write for critics. You write to create ripple effects in the world that will be remembered long after you die.

Get ideas from other writers

I often email writers and ask them what I should write about. Many of them know my work and give me cool ideas.

One writer recently said “how’d you work a day job full-time and run a side hustle?” And then he said “and why did it take you so long to quit your job?” I thought I’d written about everything. It turns out I hadn’t.

Your fellow writers and your audience know you better than you think. Ask them for ideas when you’re running on empty. Plus, it creates superfans. If a reader asks you to write about a topic and you do, they’re a fan for life.

Get feedback from other writers

As you can see fellow writers are a huge part of the writing success formula. The words we write are full of blind spots. What is clear to you might be cryptic to the audience. Having writers read your work and asking for feedback can be helpful.

Disclaimer: don’t email lots of random writers asking for feedback. Especially don’t email a New York Times Best-Selling Author and ask for feedback. Be smart about it.

Join a basic bitch community

There are tonnes of online writing communities. The free ones are mostly trash.

There are plenty of paid communities that have proper curation and can help you network with people who have the same objective. I like the “basic bitch” communities which are the ones that contain simple humans and zero pretentiousness.

For example, every online course I run has its own community attached at no extra cost. Often, the community is more valuable than the course for some students.

Get around people with the same goals.

Read the Pocket App daily

This dynamite app is a goldmine. Pocket takes writing from all over the internet and puts it in one place for you. Often the articles are highly shareable and about weird topics. Weird is good. Weird helps you write about topics that are far more interesting than “5 ways to live a happy life” that you’ve heard a million times before.

Writers who read a lot, write better stories that people love.

Practice James Altucher’s biggest hack

James wrote a book called “Skip The Line.” It’s a great book because it’s a short read and the level of English is low enough a 5th grader could devour it over milk and cookies.

James’ biggest idea is that when he was broke and about to lose his family home, he got into the habit of writing down ten ideas per day. He didn’t care if they were good ideas or not. He simply wanted to do creative reps in his mind’s gym. The ultimate hack is when he started sending those ideas to people who could benefit from them, instead of sending dumb emails that say “can I pick your brain?”

Ideas should be free. The value of an idea is in the execution.

Write down ten ideas per day and you will never run out of stuff to write about.

Network like a sleaze bag

Sleazy dudes in nightclubs talk to every potential “mate.” But networking in the same way on LinkedIn is different. If you want to make money from writing then a business platform is a great place to start.

Forget cold emails. Start conversations. Be curious. Ask people what they’re working on. Tell them the 1-2 things you love about their work. Watch the responses flood your inbox and open you up to more writing gigs.

Money from writing helps you keep writing. Don’t forget that.

Make one connection at the company whose platform you use to write on

Unless you’re Oprah you probably don’t own the platform you publish on the most. That’s okay. My advice is, make at least one friend at the company whose platform you use. Don’t kiss their ass. Simply offer to chat to them once a month and tell them what you hear about their platform in the community.

Getting banned or breaking the rules of a platform is a given. One friend at the company can save your writing career when you least expect it.

Avoid the influencer virus

Personal branding, selfishness, selfies of yourself, brand sponsorships – this influencer nonsense is getting old really quickly. Run from the influencer plague. You’re a simple blogger writing from your laptop at home. Don’t get ahead of yourself. “Influencer” means fame, and fame is a nightmare.

Selfishness takes you away from reader’s problems and towards a meaningless road to nowhere, paved in the lost dreams of what you could have been as a writer.

The people telling you to influence simply do so because it’s their business and they want to feel less lonely standing on their pedestal.

Read your writing out aloud like Nelson Mandela

Words on a computer screen are deceiving. They’re full of typos and broken grammar that make your writing stop and start with too many comma pauses.

Speak your writing out aloud. Pay attention to the pace, pauses, and rhythm. Pretend you’re rapper Tupac Shakur and pay attention to the “flow” of your words. This is what the pros do.

Be chill and cool when readers contact you

Some of the writers I have contacted over the years are a nightmare. They have tacky personal assistants (that signal privilege) who reply to my emails. Or they come across as rude or arrogant.

Don’t be that writer. Be chill. Be grateful you have access to the internet and can write online. Treat readers like potential friends. Overuse the word “thank you” a lot. Be grateful to have even ten followers.

Help readers with their problems when you can. When you see the same problem enough times mentioned in messages, write an eBook or create an online course that solves it, and dare to charge a few bucks for it.

Readers are a lot like friends. Treat them nicely and you’ll never go hungry as a writer.

This sends your growth as a writer into warp speed

The fastest way to grow an audience online as a writer is to focus on writing a lot. All the marketing and social media hacks are secondary.

High-quality content beats everything else. And high-quality content is a byproduct of writing a lot which hones your voice, sharpens your thinking, and cements who the key influences are on your writing.

Write a lot. Be humble as fuck. Enjoy the process. Make an impact. This is your life’s work so don’t ever forget the enormity of that fact.

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