Lifelog

"...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..."

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.

“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?

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

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?

Also edited and posted it as a thread on Twitter

Day 4 #100daysofmarketing
• more SEO-ing - new blog post (but doesn't really address search intent or keywords)
• "build once, sell twice" - repurposing old content from 200wad in new ways, as blogpost and Twitter threads

I learned about how @dvasallo was using the forced concision on Twitter to articulate ideas in an information-dense manner. Tweets which he then uses as a springboard to writing ebooks that he sells on Gumroad.

The way he explained it: High information density leads to good quality content, which in turn results in a high quality info product.

That’s a fascinating use of constraints, isn’t it?

The 280 character limit constraint makes for economical expression. The most bang for buck in the shortest, least amount of words possible. Like poetry. Poetry for work, entrepreneurship, health, productivity.

• Scheduled "good morning" tweets for the next 1 week,
• Scheduled author quotes about goals for the whole of Sep

This is the last of the Twitter threads turned blogposts. Next, will scour through my old 200wad writings for writings about writing, streaks, and writing habits!

Day 3 #100daysofmarketing - more SEO-ing. Added meta data to my blog so that social previews show up better.

More content to answer search intent about "how to make daily writing habit easy"

Day 2 #100daysofmarketing
- learned about using forced concision on Twitter to articulate ideas in an information-dense manner. High info density leads to good quality content.
- so instead of fleshing out the Twitter thread with fluff when writing out this blog post, I tried to not mess too much with it, and just added words where it wasn't as clear or concise.
- title headlines are the most important piece of attention real estate. I rewrote it 4-5 times to end at something that communicates the "during writing" part of the content well

• Hit $100 MRR, continued
• Start #100daysofmarketing
• Build on the organic growth of Plugins For Carrd
• Home desk setup

Day 1 #100daysofmarketing ! Setting intention, building in public

💵 Revenue:
– MRR: US$60 [No change]
– One-off revenue: ~ US$1515!

📈 [Highest growth product] Plugins For Carrd:
– added 43 users, sold 9 plugins (US$150), launched a new Nomadlist-style card listings plugin

🏑 [Most viral product ever] Tech for good
– Made safedistancing.sg in under 2h using good ol’ Carrd! Fastest ever in getting a MVP out, and it went VIRAL.
– Around $1k in patron support, 275k users, 466k page views, 4 new monthly patrons, 2 radio interviews

🐣 New products
– Created 2 new communities (5am creators, Carrd Chat) based off philosophy of community-first product development.

So overall, an August that went on to achieve much more in all other areas than the one area (Lifelog) that I initially wanted to achieve.

Mixed feelings about that.

Happy to have any growth at all, delighted at the unexpected growth in other products especially in tech for good, yet exasperated over failing to crack the Lifelog growth mystery.

Meaningful materialism. Invest in things that help me make more money.

So here’s some tools I’m considering investing in with my next pay cheque:

• A mesh office chair from Ergotune - cooling for tropical climate, and minutely adjustable for the right height
• I recently bought a seat cushion from Aliexpress that comes with fans built in - great for sitting longer! But still gets warm after about an hour. Considering getting a Moona as a water-cooled seat cushion!
• An adjustable sitting/standing desk, either from IKEA or local brands
• A mechanical keyboard from Keychron (probably the V7) - for better typing experience since I write sooo much (be it code or words)
• A monitor stand to raise the height of my laptop/desktop
• A better microphone, speakers and clip on webcam for Zoom calls/workshops
• Considering paying for subscription for Zoom and Miro, since I spend so much time on them now anyway
• Considering a new desktop iMac and M1 MBP, but likely won’t be possible till later this year or next

What else should I get?

• Converted a Twitter thread and fleshed it out further in a longer form blog post
• 1000+ words this time
• For SEO - based on search intent, answering search key word questions like "How to motivate myself to write daily"

One version of confidence is: “I’ve got this figured out.”

Another version is: “I can figure this out.”

The first is arrogant and close-minded. The second is humble and open-minded. Choose the latter.

Be humble about what you know, but confident about what you can learn. ~ @JamesClear

• checking analytics - doing better on all fronts compared to last mth, but profile clicks are lesser
• scheduling tweets for Sep
• commenting, RTing on big accounts