productivity hacks

The Best Content Creation Calendar Strategy…PERIOD

November 4, 2017 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Consistent bloggers often decide between writing all of their content at once, shortly before their due dates, or writing several blog posts in advance.

The problem with writing all of your content just before their due dates is rushing or missing the mark. The problem with writing all of your content in advance is missing out on new trends.

I admit that for the first time in my blogging journey, these problems caused me to be inconsistent.

And not because I was slacking off – I was in the middle of organizing my first virtual summit. In fact, since I’m quite good at planning ahead, I had scheduled the summit’s launch one month before final exams (basically preparing for the summit while studying for my finals).

And now that I am back to blogging — and getting more contributors at the same time — my publishing schedule has become more complicated (when do I post? when do my contributors post?)

Mark Asquith to the rescue!

Mark was one of more than 50 speakers at my Content Marketing Success Summit. And he spoke about consistently creating epic content.

One of the questions I asked Mark was what he considers the best approach to creating a content calendar, addressing the two problems I mentioned above—cramming versus planning ahead.

His response blew my mind. In October of 2016, Mark had identified all of the blog posts he would write for 2017. And by the end of the year, he had written all of them.

Mark began 2017 with all 24 blog posts he’s publishing this year. He publishes one every other week.

But let’s say I pre-wrote all of my content for 2018, and then something significant happens in the industry: SnapChat comes out with another revolutionary feature. Facebook advertising comes out with even more targeting.

How can I write about these major updates if I have all of 2018’s content waiting in the queue? Here’s the answer…

If, like Mark, you schedule all of your new blog posts for every other week, you can simply write new blog posts in between.

For instance, if you’ve scheduled blog posts for October 1st and October 15th many months in advance, you can publish a new blog post about a recent trend on October 8th.

This way, you can incorporate new content while having the bulk of your content scheduled in advance. And if all of the blog posts you write in advance are evergreen, then it doesn’t matter whether you publish them in 2017 or 2027.

For example, a blog post about productivity will be relevant every year because productivity tips do not rely on trends.

So, why is this such a great strategy? Let’s capture the scope of its impact:

#1: You Can Write About Trends Without Content Calendar Conflicts

As mentioned before, you can publish trend related articles in between the content you schedule in advance. You don’t have to tinker around with rescheduling content; you schedule in advance intentionally leaving room for gaps.

#2: You Can Warm Up Your Audience To Launches

I promote several products in any given year. Yet my 2018 calendar remains fairly open apart from a February launch that I’m participating in. I can prepare for that launch now by writing relevant content.

But let’ say Chandler Bolt asks me to promote Self-Publishing School in April, and my pre-written blog posts have NOTHING to do with writing a book (or even writing content)?

I can still write relevant content ahead of time and insert it into my content creation calendar. In fact, writing about content creation, and how to become a successful author, will warm up my audience up to this promotion.

#3: You Can Enjoy More Freedom

I wrote this entire blog post off the cuff without an outline. Of course, I still sent it to my editor, but the post remains a case of “just cuz.”

Not only will you have your content scheduled far in advance, but you will also have the freedom to write and publish additional content anytime you feel like it. Win-win!

I believe too many people miss out on this part of blogging. They are so focused on planning and writing their next blog post that they don’t truly feel free when writing.

This feeling of freedom is based on the fact that you can write about a topic that interests you while not feeling pressured to schedule the post you’re working on.

It’s more of a choice and less of “I need to publish this piece of content so my blog gets new content.”

In Conclusion

Mark’s concept got me thinking about my 2018 publishing schedule …even though we were in May of 2017 when we pre-recorded the interview.

The ability to have all of my content scheduled in advance removes most of the stress associated with being a blogger. And it’s easier to write from the heart because I’ll have so much more time.

Another concept that came up during our interview was batching. This is something also used by John Lee Dumas (discussed in Episode 38 of the Breakthrough Success Podcast).

All Mark needed to do was write all of the blog posts he’d planned for 2017 from October 2016 to December 2016 (with the exception of additional content).

Similarly, John Lee Dumas chooses two days a month to interview the 28-31 guests he has on his podcast every month.

You can choose one week to write blog posts for two months. And if you follow Mark’s posting strategy, you only have to publish one blog post every other week (or two blog posts per month). Then you’re covered for two months!

You can take this concept even further and write 12 blog posts in one week — it’s very possible if you believe in yourself — and that would give you a total of six month’s worth of content!

You can fill in the gaps by writing content about trends, inviting contributors, or by not filling them at all. Only fill in the gaps when it’s relevant to do so.

What are your thoughts on Mark’s strategy? Have any advice on carrying this strategy even further? Sound off in the comments section below.

How To Write 10,000 Words In Less Than 12 Hours

March 11, 2017 by Marc Guberti 10 Comments

What would you do if you could write 10,000 words a day to kick you content into high gear?

Would you write five lengthy blog posts? How about an e-book? Or maybe high-converting sales copy for multiple landing pages?

Writing 10,000 words a day seems more than challenging. Writing 10,000 words a day seems nearly impossible. However, it is entirely possible. I can write 10,000 words during most weeks.

When I’m feeling really good, I can write 10,000 words in one day. At that rate, I could write 70,000 words per week, or 3,650,000 words every year.

I don’t consistently write at this pace, but when I do write 10,000 words in a day, it’s an awesome feeling. If I manage to write 10,000 words in one day, I can dedicate several more days to content marketing.

With the right work ethic, you can write 10,000 words in less than 12 hours.

Not Your Everyday Writing Goal

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t write 10,000 words every single day of the year. I do it on occasion. The problem with a goal like this is that some people will get tempted to put off their writing and go all-out on one day of the week (or, even worse, once per month).

Writing 10,000 words in one day, but forgetting about the other days of the week, will set you up for ruin. You won’t develop a habit for writing, and you’ll grind through the process instead of enjoying the journey.

If you constantly pressure yourself with this goal, you risk getting overwhelmed and despising writing all together. Before you consider writing 10,000 words a day, you need an established habit.

Writing 500 words per day is a great starting point. As you establish the habit, you can look deeper at some of the other techniques writers use. Once you merge your own habits with the analysis of other writer’s habits, you’ll discover a magic formula.

My absolute minimum goal is to write 1,500 words per day, although I usually finish most days at 2,000-3,000 words. The reason I don’t write 10,000 words a day every time is because I have other responsibilities for my brand. Once I write the content, I have to spend even more time on marketing.

This is why I rarely type 10,000 words in a given day. If you have the writing habit built-in, then you’re ready for your first 10K word day. I advise making a goal for 10K words in a day only twice per month. If you do anymore than that, you risk burnout, but if it works for you, then more power to you!

How To Get The Writing Habit Down

If you don’t have a writing habit, you need to start developing it. Five-hundred words per day is a great starting point. But how do you reach it? For some people, writing 500 words seems just as impossible.

Up to now, I’ve written exactly 500 words and didn’t even notice. It took me just a few minutes. Writing 500 words isn’t that easy, but once you’ve been writing millions of words for your blog posts and books, writing 500 words in one sitting is light work.

Let’s get back to habit development. According to science, it takes 66 days for any activity to become a habit. If you write 500 words every day for two months, you can easily write 500 words anytime.

But instead of writing 500 words per day until it becomes a habit, you need to gradually increase your word count. After a week of writing 500 words, challenge yourself to go a little higher. Don’t make a big jump in the beginning. Choose a more manageable jump such as 550 words per day.

You could even increase your word count to 510 words per day. Small increases add up, and soon enough, you will effortlessly write thousands of words on any given day. It all starts with your daily habits.

Right now, you might be creating a mental roadblock in front of your writing habit. It’s something you know you want or need to do, but for some reason, you keep putting it off.

In The Productivity Project, Chris Bailey lays out six triggers for procrastination. When you look at this list, ask yourself if any of these triggers impact you when you write:

Boredom
Frustration
Difficulty
Unstructured
Lacks personal meaning
No intrinsic reward (it’s not fun)

You can change your results by making these unattractive triggers more attractive. For instance, if your writing lacks personal meaning, change what you write about so it aligns with your interests, which will make it easier for you to write 500 words each day (or more).

I write about topics that I care about, and enjoy writing blog posts like this because they help the people that I’m trying to reach. I don’t enjoy writing history papers, for example, because 99% of them are forced assignments necessary for the grade.

** Want to develop your writing habit and make money from your books and free content you put out? Schedule a free strategy call with me to see if we are a good fit. **

Calculate Your WPM

Let’s shift gears back to your first 10K word day. The next bit of information you’ll need is your WPM. This popular acronym stands for Words Per Minute in the writing community.

WPM is an assessment of how many words you can type in a given minute. Using your WPM, it’s easy to calculate your WPH. Just multiply your WPM by 60. For example, if you type at 40 WPM, then your WPH is 2,400 words.

With the average WPM lurking between 38-40, the 500 word goal is easily attainable. It’s an average WPM. For most people, it will only take 12.5 minutes or less to finish writing a 500 word blog post (assuming the idea and outline are already in place).

Knowing your WPH allows you to determine how much time you need to write 10,000 words. With the average being 40 WPM (and therefore 2,400 WPH), you only need to type for 4 hours and 10 minutes to reach the 10,000 word milestone.

Of course, this is assuming you consistently type at 40 WPM from start to finish. At some points, you’ll be thinking of different ideas and possibly doing research to verify certain facts as you write your content.

In that case, it will take longer than 4 hours and 10 minutes. If you factor in everything else that can possibly happen (including idea development while writing), you’ll find yourself at the 5-5 1/2 hour range for 10,000 words in a day.

Mathematically speaking, none of this seems as scary as before, right? I could literally write 10,000 words every day of the year, but five hours of writing each day without any marketing won’t bring forth a content brand.

This entire example is based on the average WPM. You may be slightly above or below the average WPM. The only way to determine your status is to start a typing test. Typing tests only last a few minutes; what type what shows up on the screen, and you get your WPM in real-time.

The typing test lasts for a minute, and then you get to see your results.

Here’s mine:

Screen Shot 2017-03-11 at 10.42.38 AM

For this speed test, I typed 95 words per minute, which came from countless hours of practice. At this rate, I could write 5,700 words in one hour and finish writing 10,000 words in just two hours.

While this data is skewed since the words are already provided (and you’ll have to think of fresh ideas to write about), knowing your WPM gives you a rough idea of how much time it will take for you to write 10,000 words. Just tack on an extra hour to factor in time for idea generation.

On this WPM test, you’re also likely to make mistakes as I did since the words are listed one after the other instead of provided in clear sentences.

While writing takes time, editing and revising can take even longer. You can hire an editor, ask a friend for help, or edit the content yourself. With all three of these approaches, there will be typos in your work. It’s practically unavoidable unless you meticulously look it over for several months or even a year depending on how long your content is.

At that point, it could have been published in an imperfect form but attracted more people to your brand.

Combining Attention & Energy

The timing of your work is just as important as the amount of time you invest in your work. Let me share an example with you:

Writer A goes through the entire day feeling exhausted. She still feels exhausted but pulls out her computer anyway and starts typing at 10 pm.

Writer B wakes up at 6 am and starts writing almost immediately. After some typing, she takes a break, eats a healthy breakfast, and then continues typing for another hour.

Which writer seems more productive to you? I’d go with Writer B any day of the week. Both writers are committed and willing to write for several hours. The difference is that one feels charged up while the other feels exhausted.

Your body and mind are part of you, and they play a big role in your productivity. If you feel distracted, that will negatively affect your productivity. There’s no question about it.

Most people focus on time as a measurement of productivity. If you worked for six hours today, you were more productive than when you only worked for five hours, right?

That approach is all wrong.

It’s not just a matter of how much time we put into our work, more specifically, it’s about what kind of time we’re putting into our work. Are you putting quality minutes into your work, or do you struggle through the day eager to boast about how much work you did later?

Circling back to The Productivity Project, Chris Bailey also mentions biological primetime. Everyone has a biological primetime, the timeframe in which it’s easiest for us to enter our working flow. For me, my biological primetime is early in the morning. For others, their biological primetime is in the afternoon or evening.

Think about how you work to determine your biological primetime. That is when you need to write your content. During this primetime, it’s much easier to write 10,000 words a day.

To actually find your primetime, you need to track your entire day, from what tasks you completed to how often you procrastinated. If you do this for a week, you will discover your biological primetime.

Once you know your primetime, you can reallocate your tasks so your high-value tasks (i.e. writing 10K words) get distributed within your biological primetime. That way, your attention and energy are properly focused on the work that matters most when you’re at your optimal level of productivity.

Not only should you track your time to discover your biological primetime, you should also learn a lot about yourself. You’ll learn how you spend your time and how you procrastinate. You can more easily weed out the bad activities so you can focus more of your time, attention, and energy on the tasks that create the biggest impact.

Space Everything Else Out Of Your Biological Primetime

When you keep track of your time, you’ll discover which tasks you do during your biological primetime. Most people discover that they’re making a big blunder within this golden opportunity.

If you check your stats, read the news, or scroll through Facebook during these golden hours, you are restricting your potential. That is the time you should focus on writing content.

Based on how you track your time, you’ll determine different distractions that can get in your way. Email and the internet are two of the many distractions that call us when we are trying to pursue our work. Anticipate distractions like these and eliminate them.

When I write a blog post, I’m almost never on the internet. The only time I use the internet while writing a blog post is when I’m doing research. I find the right time to mention someone else’s article. All I have to do is get the link, and that’s the only time I use the internet while blogging.

Oh, and I never see my Mail icon when I’m writing blog posts. I remove that app from my dashboard and only bring it back when I’m done writing.

Plan Out Your Content In Advance

I keep score of my blog posts’ lengths as I write them. Right now, this blog post is a little over 2,000 words long. In the past, I would struggle to get past 1,000 words with a blog post like this.

I might get past 1,000 words on a post, but not by much.

I always planned out my content in advance, even when it felt like writing massive blog posts was challenging. Back then, my outline was limited. I identified the blog post title and which tactics I would discuss.

Now I use the Socratic Outline for all of my blog posts. The Socratic Outline is like a traditional outline with a twist. You act as the reader and type questions the reader would have. For each tactic I discuss, I type at least three questions that the reader might ask.

For a blog post on getting more Twitter followers, one tip would be “Interact with your audience.” Here are some questions people may have:

How do I interact with my audience?
What do I say?
How do I continue the conversation?

Instead of having five ideas within a blog post containing five tactics, I now multiply that total to 15 ideas within the same blog post containing the same five tactics. The more ideas you have to play with in your writing, the easier it is to write 10,000 quality words each day.

Anyone can type “very, very, very” 10,000 times. Planning out your content in advance allows you to develop the skill of writing quality words in massive quantities.

The Socratic Outline makes long-form content much easier to produce.

Change Your Environment

The tactics mentioned so far will give you the skills and mindset needed to write 10,000 words in under 12 hours. However, your environment is also a critical factor. When I first wrote this blog post, I mentioned that we all have a biological primetime. We are more productive during certain times of the day than others.

I want to take biological primetime one step further. Your biological primetime differs based on the environment you are in. At home, my biological primetime is the morning. Towards the evening, especially after 5 pm eastern, my productivity drops.

The biological primetime for my productivity at home is in the morning.

That’s why I interview most of my podcast guests in the evening. I’m not as productive at writing in the evening, but I can hold great conversations during that time.

Sometimes, when I don’t have an interview, I’ll go to a local bookstore in the evening to become more productive.

My productivity spikes in the new environment because my environment has changed. Your environment affects your biological primetime. I’m more productive at a local bookstore during the evening, and I only create content in that bookstore. I’m not doing anything else at that time.

I do all of the tech related work in the morning (create landing pages, check email sequences, etc.) and create as much content as my heart desires.

If your productivity is lagging at certain times of the day, the best solution is to change your environment. Then, you change your results.

In Conclusion

Writing 10,000 words a day is a daunting task, especially if you do it consistently. However, if you write 10,000 words two days each month, you’ll add an extra 20,000 words to your monthly total.

Those 20,000 words can provide you with several blog posts, books, and other forms of content. As you continue writing every day, you’ll have an easier time writing high quality words in massive quantities.

Share This Post With Your Friends

How many words do you write each day? What are your thoughts on the 10K word day? What’s your plan to write more content? Have a question for me?

Leave me a comment. I read them all 🙂

And if you know anyone else who needs this burst of insight, make sure you pass it on.

[Tweet “How To Write 10,000 Words In Less Than 12 Hours.”]

** Want to make money from your writing? Schedule a free strategy call with me to see if we are a good fit. **

5 Tactics That Almost Guarantee Success

January 7, 2017 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Guaranteed success is a strong prediction; every time people come across the words “guarantee” and “success” together, there’s bound to be some skepticism.

But these five tactics are powerful. The super secret kind of powerful, and I’m about to expose them all. While you may have already heard of some of these tactics, others will be new.

But none of them matter if you don’t take action.

You’d think that something like taking action would be the first tactic. However, we are constantly taking action. Every day, we take a massive amount of action, but our results don’t always match up with our efforts.

Here’s how to make your actions translate into results:

#1: Get Into A Routine

A routine is something you follow without fail every single day (or at least on specific days of the week). Following a routine, or having no routine at all, can singlehandedly make the difference between success and failure.

I recently read The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, and one of his stories about routine really struck home. Here’s how it went:

Golfer Jack Nicklaus was known for his famous pre-shot routine. During an important Majors tournament, Nicklaus was at the top of his game. A psychologist timed the golfer from the moment he pulled the club out of the bag until the moment he hit the ball.

For each shot from start to finish, the timing of his routine never varied by more than one second.

That same psychologist measured Greg Norman during his collapse in the 1996 Masters. As the game progressed, his pre-shot routine became faster and faster.

If you don’t know what you are doing when you wake up, and right before you go to bed, you’re in trouble. Establishing a routine during the bookends of your day will get you into a rhythm of success. What are you doing each morning and evening? And in what order?

I always read for an hour before I go to bed. Lately, I’ve been responding to emails for 15 minutes before I begin reading. I continue to build backwards to get more activities wrapped into my routine.

People don’t mess up because they give themselves many goals. They mess up because they give themselves many goals without designating which portions of the day they’ll start working on each individual goal.

Without a routine in place, you risk missing out on your biggest goals.

#2: Think About What You Can Do

I am having a great time in college. I’m making new friends, running, and doing new things. I recently started to play pool and found myself playing for several hours on any given day.

While doing homework and showing up to a practice aren’t a problem, I was losing significant time for my business.

One day, I had had enough. I decided that I wouldn’t play any pool for one day. With this mindset, I did get more done (but I still ended up playing some pool).

I was so focused on not playing pool that I didn’t think about what else I could do. So instead of thinking, “I can’t play pool,” I began to think, “I can go to the library for an hour each day.” Then I started going to the library and getting more of my work done.

The moment I shifted from “I can’t do X” to “I can do Y,” making the transition became easier. I still play pool at college, but now I spend at least an hour each day on campus working on my business.

It’s easier to fight off a bad habit if you focus on what you can do instead, rather than simply cutting off the bad habit.

Furthermore, if you think you can’t do something, you are right. Only devote your time and attention towards the goals that you can do. Every battle begins and ends within the mind.

#3: Increase Your Desire

The desire you have for your work is important. If you desire your work, you’ll have no problem putting in the hours. If you don’t desire your work, you’ll want to get through it as soon as possible.

Desire gets you across the finish line. A lack of desire encourages you to find any reason to stop short.

If you want to increase your desire, the simple act of writing your desire to achieve each goal will increase your likelihood of success. If you want to get 100 subscribers each day, write the following:

“I WILL GET 100 SUBSCRIBERS EACH DAY BY THE END OF X.”

The all caps is very important here. Not only that, but giving yourself a reasonable deadline will make you hone in your efforts to meet the deadline.

If you give yourself an unreasonable deadline, you’ll lose motivation when you don’t accomplish your goal. If you give yourself a reasonable, but more challenging, deadline, you’ll make daily progress until you accomplish your goal.

If you want to get back in touch with your niche, simply write, “I LOVE [NICHE NAME]” and you’ll come to believe it. If you write about your desire long enough, that desire will ignite in a powerful way.

#4: Read A Lot Of Books

Reading has had a big impact on my success. Reading the right books about your niche allows you to acquire new knowledge. Once you apply the right knowledge, you’ll get better results in any area you are pursuing.

Each month, I set a target for myself to read 10 books. That adds up to at least 120 books every year, which is far more than what most people read. I won’t go into detail about reading a lot of books because I discussed that in a previous post.

Regardless of what niche you’re in, reading personal development books will work wonders for you. Personal development books help you become the best you imaginable. Some focus on productivity while others focus on relationships, but they all focus on making you perform effectively and efficiently in anything that you do.

#5: Analyze Successful People

There’s always that one cool kid in school who everyone wants to emulate. Becoming cool meant hanging with that cool kid. In a similar way, to become successful, you have to hang out with people who are already successful.

This version of hanging out consists of you reading their content, watching their interviews, and consuming virtually every piece of content they were involved in.

By doing that, you’ll learn a lot about how these individuals became successful. You’ll learn from their habits and expertise. Remember, you’re only as good as the company you keep. If you want to become successful, start following the example of successful people now.

In Conclusion

It’s just as easy to fall short as it is to become successful. There are many people who work just as hard or harder than the world’s greatest innovators.

The difference between these two groups of people is how they devote their time and what goals they pursue and accomplish.

Success requires patience combined with a strong mindset. Once you have that mixture, and live by the five tactics, you’ve already won the battle. At that point, it’s just a matter of time before you inevitably walk into a goldmine.

Which of these tactics resonated with you the most? Have any tips on becoming successful? Sound off in the comments section below.