A few days ago I was scrolling through my substack feed, and I came across this post:
On Substack - How to create a consistent writing habit
It’s a series covering three steps to help form the writing habit. The three steps are:
- Why you’re publishing: Setting goals for your publication
- What you’re publishing: Formats, style, and templates
- When to publish: Setting your schedule and building a habit to do the work
I’ve completed step 1 and step 2 already. Today I am writing about step 3.
When should I publish?
This is going to be a shorter one compared to the last two, as there really isn’t as much to discuss. The two high level topics covered in the post are:
- Setting a schedule
- Tools to plan, write, and publish
So let’s get into it.
Setting a schedule
And right away we have advice in the article that has me feeling a little conflicted. This self-imposed challenge was to write in public every day - but the article recommends posting once a week. Anecdotally from users in the comments, posting daily has driven unsubscription rates up with email notifications becoming spammy.
I have been thinking about the quality of my posts, and I don’t want to fall too far towards low-quality posts, just for the sake of meeting this one-a-day schedule. So far I think the quality has been okay - variable but mostly okay. I am putting a lot of pressure on myself to always be writing and thinking about writing though. And so I think with this in mind, I would like to move to a less frequent posting schedule, perhaps every *other *day or every three days - at least while I’m still waiting to accept a job offer. I think the posting every day on LinkedIn has been helping with my job searching, getting me in people’s feeds and on their radar - so I want to keep that up.
The other component of the posting schedule is timing. From the article:
There is no magic day or time to publish. Put yourself in your readers’ shoes. Do they need your writing to help them with their job? Then publishing first thing in the morning on a weekday might be best. Do they read your posts for fun? Then publishing on the weekends or in the evening might mean your post arrives right when they have time to sit back, relax, and read. Think about when your subscribers’ reading habits might best align with the time you have to produce and publish your posts.
Since the topics I cover are mostly software development related, and often not exactly light reading, I think early week days might be a good time to publish. I’ve observed that less people seem to engage with the stuff I’ve been putting out over the weekend, which I understand. I’m not going to make this a rule though, I’ll play it by ear and see what tends to get more engagement.
Tools to plan, write, and publish
The article has some good ideas for tools and methods to help to plan your writing, and to do the actual writing - some of which I’m already doing:
Planning
-
Make a running list of ideas
I’m already doing this - I have a page in Notion that I use to keep track of a whole lot of blog-related stuff, including potential topics. I also occasionally use voice memos on my phone when I am in the middle of something and a great idea pops into my head but I can’t stop to write it down.
-
Create a calendar: Turn your ideas into action by naming a date you want to publish the idea on
I probably won’t do this. It might work for some people, but I don’t think it fits my content style or my workflow well.
Writing
- Block off your calendar: Successful writers block out writing time rather than scrambling to find it in between other commitments. Set aside time when you know you think clearest or have the most energy.
I think this is a good idea - I just need to identify when exactly this ideal writing time is. Todo…
So that’s part three - the final part - of this “forming the habit” miniseries. With every day of writing I feel like the purpose of the writing becomes a little bit clearer, and this series has helped me think about it in a much more intentional way than I would otherwise.
As always, see you in the next one.