Don’t Ever Lose Time to Write Online Again
Excellent writing skill is never as important as today. Over 85–100 million people use Medium each month. They’re on it to search for something worth reading. Something valuable. And you can give it to them by the content you write.
On Twitter, I follow @david_perrel and see the advantage of writing online. Especially for the field you work on. You will attract like-minded people and build the audience which will benefit your business.
Everybody wants to write well. By writing, you can express yourself, communicate with others, and teach people.
Recently, I write more. The purpose is for business and personal. It can overwhelm, yet therapeutic. And now I want to share to you what I’ve learned.
My Journey with Writing
I’m a terrible writer. It took me so much time to write anything. Either an email or a post I want to share on social media. Last time I needed 5 hours to write an email for my business partner. Five hours. From 5 AM until 10 AM. Imagine what other activities I can do for that amount of time.
The output is not bad. My partner understands my intention with the email and I got good feedback. In other time, I needed three days for a post on Medium. It got attention and generates traffic to my agency’s website. I see the advantage of writing online. Still, I know I have to cut that lengthy period of writing and claim my time back.
The Process to Write and Find The Ideal Audience
To upgrade my writing skills, I gather the information, anything about writing. I read the how-to and the tutorials. I search for ‘The best way to write articles’, ‘Get the attention of your readers’, ‘Build the momentum of your writing activity’, and so on. This is the period of learning and absorbing that specific knowledge.
The common thing from those articles is one: the shorter you can write, the better it is. So, short your sentence.
Also, you need to write with purpose. It assures the choice of your words is in line with your target audience. This is one article I take as reference to know my target audience.
Great tip: Imagine you write the article for one person. It may be the previous version of you. You try to help and give a piece of useful information through this article.
By writing this article, I imagine the previous version of myself can get the knowledge I share and so can improve his writing skills. He’ll know the tools to use and can make his process become quicker.
And remember, your ideal audience isn’t only the people who will consume or apply what you put out there. They’re the ones most likely to do so. Don’t worry about going too narrow. No matter how narrow an ideal audience you target, your work will still get seen by others outside that niche. They’ll still dig it. And still become a part of your audience.
Have a Capture Habit
The capture habit is as simple as “WRITE IT DOWN”. Everything. All ideas, thoughts, dreams, and learning.
Your mind’s working memory has its limit. You can’t hold all your best ideas in your head. So offload them to a reliable holding place. If you never capture your insights, they won’t stay with you.
The capture habit is how you keep insight through time and draw upon its wisdom to benefit again and again.
What should you capture? Listen to your intuition, don’t analyze. Pay attention to ideas, quotes, and sentences that cause a change in your energy, different sensations. Capture those.
This habit is also important to your writing activity.
The content you consume will affect the end-result of your writing. That’s why it’s also important for you to do this part. Read articles of topics you’re interested in. Clip it and summarize. You’ll thank yourself later for doing it.
The Tools I Use
After the clipping and assembling process, I outline the content I want to create. From introduction until the takeaways.
To simplify my process, I use Evernote as the center of my notes. I use the Web Clipper extension to get the selected notes. I write on Google Docs or on ProWritingAid, to check the grammar and correct typos. I used to use Grammarly for this job. But I find ProWritingAid is more stable.
To refine my writing, I use the Hemingway App and cut unnecessary words or even restructure my sentences. This is a brilliant tool to get your sentence straights to the point.
Re-Work/Cut Words
After those processes, now you need to take time to read your writing again. Editing is a mandatory task. Write, read, edit, repeat. It will ensure your article is efficient and fulfils its purpose.
The Takeaways
With this post, I want to encourage you to write more. It will help you to communicate and have the contents you consume stick longer. You won’t get the advantage right away, but it can attract your ideal audience to know about you. Eventually, it will be beneficial for you, personal and business-wise. Have in mind to teach the previous version of you in writing the article. Use the tools to simplify your process. So your writing activity can become easier and you’ll ship your content quicker.
About the Author
Tri Lastiko is the founder of SAB, a digital marketing agency based in Jakarta. He’s also a consultant, entrepreneur, and content creator.
Follow him everywhere @trilastiko
