Make money doing the work you believe in
MY 10-STEP WRITING METHOD
I have honed this process over 10+ years of online writing for tens of millions of people on 10+ platforms (Forbes, Fortune, Entrepreneur, TIME, WEF, HBR, Forbes, Inc., Medium, Quora, LinkedIn, Substack):
Brainstorm 100+ article ideas. I have a spreadsheet of article ideas. I brainstorm so many ideas, because many of my best ideas don’t come until later on.
Select what to write based on a Venn diagram. My Venn diagram includes what I’m most curious about, what will cause me to grow the most, what will be ever-green, what I could uniquely write compared to other writers online, and what my paid readers most want.
Deeply research the topic from multiple perspectives. I look for academic, practitioner case studies, and personal experimentation perspectives. I also look across multiple fields and multiple time-frames.
Try to identify and disprove my most fundamental assumptions. I grow the most by developing new beliefs rather than proving everything I already believe. If I haven’t fundamentally transformed as a result of an article, I question whether or not it was worth it.
Get clarity on what is most interesting from the research. After dozens of hours of research, I can have trouble separating the trees from the forest. Therefore, I take a step back and think about what I am most excited to write about.
Talk things out one-on-one with around 5 people via Voxer. I trade 10+ Voxer audio messages a day. I find it hard to think without conversations. I talk with friends who love learning and thinking out loud about interesting ideas.
Brainstorm 25 titles. This helps give clarity on how I will write the intro and structure the article. Brainstorming more titles forces me to think more deeply rather than going with the first title that sounds good enough.
Collect the lego blocks. I organized relevant quotes, visuals, Trademark Ideas, hooks, research, celebrity spokespeople, etc. so that I have everything I need as I’m writing the article and I don’t get stuck halfway through.
Go through 5-15 drafts to improve the article. For each draft, I focus on one thing to edit (e.g., comprehensiveness, brevity, interestingness, etc.)
Don't publish until I feel proud about what I've written. This test often leads me to revisit the entire article and make hours more of edits.
I love my method because it optimizes for curiosity, personal growth, and quality.
WHAT I WRESTLE WITH THE MOST
I still wrestle with how much time to spend per post. I used to give myself months and that led to perfectionism. Right now, I do one post per week, but that makes me feel rushed during the editing process. So I haven’t been fully doing all 15 drafts since joining Substack. I’d love to do two posts per month, but I wonder if that is too little for a paid newsletter to grow.
QUESTION FOR YOU
What's your step-by-step writing method?
What do you love about it?