by JimRaffel on February 3, 2012
Hardly a week goes by that I don’t field the “How do you find time to write so much?” question. Until earlier this week, I wasn’t comfortable answering that question or even quite sure how to answer it. It turns out the answer is simple: I make time to write, I don’t find it.
Making time to write
Writing has become the marketing cornerstone of my business interests. I never really set out or planned to be a content marketer, but that’s what I’ve become. With content creation as the key piece of marketing myself and the ventures I am involved in, making time to write is required, not optional. A content marketer not making time to write would be like a salesman not finding time to sell.
Creating content is a critical business task for content marketers. When you don’t feel like writing, just stop and ask yourself if you don’t like eating as well. While one day of not writing will not destroy your income stream, becoming lazy and skipping days frequently will certainly have an adverse effect on your bottom line.
Know when you write best
I’ve learned over the last several years that I write best first thing in the morning or just as the work day is winding down. That’s when I carve out time to write. Sure, there are times I have to write late at night or in the middle of the day, but that’s not ideal so I work to avoid it. By having two times a day that work for you, you can skip the first but if the second time slot is fast approaching you’d better choose to write before the day slips away.
Writing comes before…
You get to fill in the space after the ellipse because it will be different for you than me. I put writing before reading and watching TV. That does not mean I deprive myself of either of those pleasures, but they come after I’ve made time to write. I find time for relaxation and enjoyment in my life. I make time for critical tasks like writing.
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by JimRaffel on January 20, 2012
I have a confession. This was not the blog post I had planned to publish today. That in itself is a good reason to blog. Yesterday morning’s events impacted me so much that I decided to capture the moment by writing about it and sharing it.
A quick blog story
Yesterday morning I woke up around 4 a.m. and couldn’t fall back asleep. Like many social media addicts, I grabbed my phone and took a look at my Twitter stream. In my mentions stream was a conversation that included Brandie McCallum. I know Brandie because she participates in #PrintChat every Wednesday on Twitter. We also periodically engage on Twitter in mostly fun conversations. The more I got to know Brandie the more I liked her and started to wonder what it is that she does for a living.
Brandie’s Twitter profile links to her Lttlewys blog. So there I was at 4 a.m. wide awake reading her blog on my iPhone. Brandie’s blog is similar to this one in that she mixes business and personal stories. On her “About” page she even admits to not being very good at separating business and personal. I suffer from the same thing. I like what I read, and while we may never do business together, I bet we’ll help each other’s businesses. I also learned that Brandie likes to connect people, which is another condition from which I suffer.
Your blog is you
Using the sub-headline above scared me for a minute because I don’t want it to be your permission slip for your blog to be a personal journal. It shouldn’t be if your goal is for your blog to represent you online. Your blog can and should be the center of your social media universe. Sure, I can get a glimpse of who you are in Twitter, but it’s by diving deep into your blog that I can learn how you approach the world, business issues and other human beings.
Somewhere in that 25 to 50 post range, it becomes difficult to fool us anymore. By then your blog will be a pretty clear reflection of who you are and, more importantly, who you are striving to become.
Keep it real. Keep writing.
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