Jason Leow

• more SEO-ing, repurposing old content in new ways - new blog post https://golifelog.com/posts/writing-for-emergence-1631052781423

• x-posting on Medium - https://medium.com/@jasonleow/11-productivity-hacks-to-make-your-daily-writing-easy-34d97f11ef3d

• added canonical link to Quora answer

Crossing the chasm to a 4-digit maker streak today.

Yet why do I feel like I'm only just getting started?

ONWARDS

There’s always this point along a habit formation journey that you know you had crossed, when the habit finally sticks.

I think I just crossed it for my daily marketing habit.

Weird thing is, I’d been doing marketing for a few months now. It didn’t feel like it stuck. But once I committed to #100daysofmarketing, something began to shift.

I believe what was really happening beneath it all was an identity shift. All the inner fighting, the resistance, was the old self fighting against discomfort and change. Growth always feels painful, initially.

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." ~ Kahlil Gibran

And the catalyst that brought about this identity shift was the looming challenge of doing something every day for 100 days. Only a big enough challenge could have brought about the requisite amount of discomfort and stress...

Someone reminded me today, that watching yourself grow is a beautiful sight. Taking a moment today, with this post, to be grateful for the journey and the growth.

"...writing is to draw out something. What exactly, I don’t know. But the act of writing draws it out. It’s emergent. I don’t always like what comes out every time for sure, but I like it often enough, to be interested in continuing to write daily. It’s like participating in a lottery everyday..."

• more SEO-ing - "build once, sell twice" - repurposing old content from 200wad in new ways - new blog post https://golifelog.com/posts/why-do-you-write-every-day-1630967539510 -

• x-posting on Medium - https://medium.com/@jasonleow/how-to-make-daily-writing-easy-preparation-preparation-preparation-884a42023cfe

• created a Quora account and started cross posting on a new channel - https://qr.ae/pGZrc0

Since starting on Makerlog, I did these:

• Made my first product
• Earned my first dollar from the internet
• Won the coveted #1 spot on Product Hunt for the day
• Learned how to code
• Launched my first SaaS that I coded myself
• Earned my first MRR dollar recently, on Lifelog
• Solidified my tech for good, social impact patronage work
• Had my first ever viral product
• Best thing? Made many lifetimes worth of like-minded maker friends

Wow. It’s such a nice feeling to have it all on record. Like keeping a journal during your teens, and rereading when you’re old.

What a crazy ride the past 3 years! 🎢

Updates sections:

• Social gatherings: Strongly encouraged to limit to 1 gathering/day till 20 Sep
• Workplace social gatherings banned

“Why do you write every day?”

The interesting answer to that question is:

It depends.

It depends on which season or stage you’re in. The reasons you wrote when you started can be vastly different from the reasons you are still writing after one month, six months, or one year.

You evolve in your writing and as a writer, along the journey of daily writing.

But that said, there seems to generally be three typical seasons that someone goes through.

• How it started: The spirited phase - writing for convergence
• How it went: The slump phase - writing for emergence
• How it’s going: The stable phase - writing for divergence

What do you think? Did you experience these seasons in your daily writing journey?

• Scheduled "Good morning..." tweets till end of Sep
• RTed, commented, liked

My writing funnel version 2.0:

Primary channels -
• Lifelog for atomic writing, writing-to-think, works-in-progress.
• Twitter for short form distribution via value-packed threads, for discussion, engagement and referral loops back to Lifelog or my personal Twitter account.
• Canonical cross-posting to Medium for writers, for long form distribution. Any monies from the Partner Program will be a bonus.
• Quora for further long form distribution to frequently asked questions about writing, people who might already be warm to the idea of Lifelog.
• LinkedIn for distributing to professionals on why writing benefits their career.

Secondary channels -
• Reddit for the chance of viral distribution, but tough crowd.
• Facebook for showing off to people I know haha. ;)
• Personal blog for occasional personal long form content, like monthly, yearly goals and reviews.
• Indie Hackers, Hacker News, Telegram / Slack groups for ad-hoc sharing to niche target groups - indie writers, creators, bloggers, marketing folks, entrepreneurs, developers, makers.

For those who had done this before, what might be some things I should be aware or cautious about when doing this funnel?

Anyone distributed via TikTok before? How best can Lifelog distribute content on TikTok?

• more SEO-ing - new blog post https://golifelog.com/posts/how-to-motivate-yourself-to-write-everyday-1630284221364

• "build once, sell twice" - repurposing old content from 200wad in new ways, as blogpost and Twitter threads

• started cross posting on a new channel - Medium! Canonical URL linked back to Lifelog post. https://medium.com/@jasonleow/how-to-motivate-yourself-to-write-everyday-f275362abf3b
https://medium.com/@jasonleow/how-to-find-time-to-write-everyday-c20aebfa5c3f

• Applied for Partner Program on Medium!

If there was just one writing hack I can have, this would be it:

Reading quality determines writing quality.

Consumption shapes production.

Input shapes output.

Use #tweet100 as a social accountability forcing function to craft one good tweet per day that you’re proud of, for 100 days straight.

"Craft something that you’re proud of."

That spoke to the craftsman in me.

I want make more high signal stuff.
Stuff I can say I crafted.
Stuff I am proud of.

I want to up my Twitter game, via a craftsmanship approach. So I’m committing to #tweet100.

100 tweets that I’m proud of, after 100 days. Can’t wait!

“Hire great writers. If you’re trying to decide among a few people to fill a position, hire the best writer. It doesn’t matter if that person is a marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever; their writing skills will pay off. That’s because being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. Writing is making a comeback all over our society. Look at how much people email and text now rather than talk on the phone. Writing is today’s currency for good ideas.” - Jason Fried

—

Day 5 #100daysofmarketing
• more SEO-ing - new blog post
• "build once, sell twice" - repurposing old content from 200wad in new ways, as blogpost and Twitter threads

This is why I really write:

So that those words are on record, somewhere.

And when I reread them, I can go a few ways:

“Damn those were the good ol’ days!”
“Wow, which young punk wrote this?”
“Why am I still making this same mistake?”

Your words are your teachers.

I truly believe this:

That a creator, indie hacker with a writing habit is 10x more likely to achieve their own version of success, than someone who don’t.

Folks I follow who’s had any success or influence at all, all had a writing habit.

Happy to be proven wrong.

Perfect way to be an unhappy creator/indie hacker

1. Create/code a product
2. Obsess over pixels & tech stack
3. Never launching

Never set goals without cost constraints:

I want to start a business… without spending more than $10K
I want to make $100K… without working more than 2hrs/day
I want to get promoted… without sacrificing my family
… and so on.
Else you become a slave of your goals.

~ @dvassallo

So, applying constraints to my $5k MRR goal:

• I want $5k MRR by end of 2021, without working more than 4h per day.
• I want $5k MRR, without sacrificing my daily family time in the evenings.
• I want $5k MRR, without having to trade-off my daily exercise, and lose fitness/health.
• I want a profitable business, without burning out.
• I want multiple income streams via a portfolio of small bets, without feeling pulled in too many directions.
• I want to enjoy working hard, without forgetting to have fun.

So what constraints would you add to your goals?