How to Build Your Online Writing Empire During After Hours Without Slogging Like a Bee
Alternative title: How you can achieve your dreams without driving yourself nuts
Are you an overachiever?
Likely, you are.
Many people want to do many things. In fact, too many things. One fellow Medium writer I know almost drove me nuts with her schedule.
It was inhumane. At least it is… to me.
- She sells things on Esty,
- She puts up products on Shopify,
- She volunteers to edit article drafts for a publication,
- She is in the middle of relocating from Country A to Country B,
- AND~DD- she writes.
It is an incredible barrage of work.
I got dizzy after hearing it.
And it got me thinking.
Getting Busy is Not Our Ultimate Goal
Are you born a bumblebee?
They are, quite literally, born to work.
According to The Real Meaning Behind Busy Bees,
A worker bee’s sole purpose for living is to work. From the moment they are born to the moment they die, they always have a job, a role to fill within the hive, and lives to protect. They work every single day without any days off — that is a lot of responsibility for one small bee.
I never knew bees were busy because they are born to be so. It is their life mission.
I imagined no questions asked.
“Hai, my Queen!”
They swear their allegiance to the queen bee, take a 90-degree bow, move into their assigned position, and remain there for years.
Do they see a point in their way of life? Maybe. I don’t know.
This is what I do know.
Getting busy for the sake of it… is a terrible way of living. We will feel productive at first. Soon, weariness and mental fatigue set in. And then we question why we are tired as a dog.
If that answer is not strong enough to withstand the onslaught of self-doubt…
We give up.
We are humans, after all.
Without Killing Ourselves
First, we have dreams.
Next, we have constraints.
I’ll start with constraints. We have a boat of them. The main one is time. 24 hours a day is all we have. No more, no less.
The second logical constraint is available time. If you have a day job — Deduct 9 to 10 hours away from your playtime.
The last one I like to focus on is energy. We are fresh as a daisy in the morning and dead as a log in the evening. Of course.
We can start mapping our dreams to our lives when constraints are identified.
Pardon me.
I’m practical.
I enjoy writing online. I’m actively experimenting with my style and sending my work to different publications frequently. That does not mean I write daily. It just means I write with an established frequency.
Big difference.
And because I acknowledge my constraints, I learned to,
- Ideate faster,
- Write faster,
- Finish faster.
How to Write Faster Without Killing Your Fingers or Murdering the Writer’s Mind
If you have only 2 hours a day to write — You need to be fast.
It is not [just] about typing fast.
We must be fast across the board.
Let me use ideation as an example. This is how I ideate fast.
- I have a conversation,
- I extract the struggles of the person I am speaking to,
- I bootstrap the struggles I hear in bullet points,
- I turn every bullet point in one article.
Here’s the trick. Pick the bullet point where scores of pointers flood your brain when you read the description.
For me, the article is formulated when I see volunteer editors. Why so? I’ve been there. I can write 4 main points on this topic without much thinking or deep research.
This is the trick. You want enough pointers to fill up 2.5 empty pages without additional research. It takes time.
Don’t spend what you don’t have. This is financial advice. This is writing advice.
Next. On writing faster.
Now, I am not referring to supersonic typing speeds. Yes, it helps. And no, it doesn’t, if you have no clue what to write after spitting out 5 sentences.
Writing faster is more than that.
It requires having the entire article flashed out in your head before you get your fingers to kiss the keyboard.
This is what I do.
- I stare at one bullet point in my notes.
- Can I think of 3 headlines at a minimum? Check.
- Can I think of 6 main points to write about? Check.
- Do I already have [strong] opinions on this topic? Check.
- Do I have the conclusion in my head? Check.
Once I have all these, all I do is write.
I would zone out in Zen mode.
Before I know it — I’m done.
And that brings me to the final point. Finishing faster.
What can we do to finish our writing faster? No, do not skip your Grammarly checks. That would infuriate your editors. That is the last thing you want to do.
In fact, never ever do it.
What you want is to minimize your time spent on editing.
This is my cheat sheet. You can have it for free.
- Keep sentences short. Like short. Super duper short.
- Avoid commas. Abuse full stops. Don’t continue endlessly. Take pauses. Just stop. Breathe.
- Talk in 1s, 2s, 3s. Use bullets. Enumerate. Count. List.
- Say something. Reinforce it. Rewrite it. Jab, jab, hook.
- Write as you talk. Don’t nag. Talk.
I build these writing habits into my fingers. It has become second nature.
And, oh.
Before I forget.
Use super-simple-stupid words. There is no need to impress readers with your vocabulary. It can be repulsive when your readers don’t understand what you are saying.
In brief, it means…
“Don’t use the word cohort when you can use the word group. A cohort is a group. There is no reason to use a difficult word when there is an easier one. You sound stupid doing so.”
The Close
You won’t live to see your online writing empire flourish if you kill yourself today.
Or burnout. Or tap out. Or throw in the towel.
We have to find ways to stay in the game. Building an empire we proudly call our own during after-hours is tough sh!t.
We are dog tired, we don’t feel like doing anything, and we want to climb into bed.
Give yourself the best chance of success.
Learn to,
- Ideate faster,
- Write faster,
- Finish faster.
Because you stay in the game longer… when you don’t struggle to stay in.
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