Summary

The author discusses the importance of balancing writing passion on Medium with personal well-being, cautioning against the obsession over metrics like claps, reads, and engagement.

Abstract

The article emphasizes the allure of Medium for writers, offering a platform for immediate feedback and readership, which can be both exhilarating and addictive. The author shares their personal experience of writing multiple pieces daily, the joy of being read, and the struggle with the temptation to constantly check and analyze their work's performance on the site. However, they warn that fixating on these metrics can lead to sleep deprivation and stress, suggesting that writers should focus on producing quality content, presentation, and promotion, while not letting the pursuit of popularity on Medium consume their lives. The author advocates for a healthy balance, emphasizing the need to step away from the platform to maintain one's health and state of mind.

Opinions

The author values the immediate feedback loop on Medium, finding it rewarding and motivating.
There is a concern about the potential for Medium's metrics to dominate a writer's thoughts, affecting sleep and overall health.
The author believes that while writing frequently and striving for quality is important, one should not be overly preoccupied with the success of each piece.
The article suggests that a writer's control is limited to content creation, presentation, and promotion, with reader engagement and platform curation being less predictable.
A strict rule of no phone or Medium engagement between late evening and early morning is recommended to preserve sleep and mental health.
The author encourages writers to have a life beyond Medium, advocating for self-care and balance to sustain their writing endeavors.

Why You Shouldn’t Obsess about Medium

Sure, write to your heart’s content on this site and do your very best, but you also need to take care of yourself, too.

There’s an intoxication to this website that can’t be denied.

On March 1, I started writing and posting three times a day to Medium, and I still continue to publish at least one new story a day nearly ten months later. Every day I watch some posts take off right away and watch others die quick and tragic deaths.

Medium has been a great place for me to write because for years I’ve put so much hard work into novels that have still never seen the light of day. Books I’ve put thousands and thousands of hours into.

It’s one thing to write material you know people are going to read. It’s another to write material that has a very good chance of never being read much no matter how long you work on it.

What’s so great about this site is that I can wake up every day, write what I’m compelled to write, try new things, fail and succeed, and at the end of the day there are readers on here who will take a look at my work, read it or not read it, like it or not like it, clap for it or not clap for it.

No matter — it’s great to actually be read for once in my life!

It’s so exciting to write something from scratch and then publish it soon thereafter. To put your heart into something for an hour or so and then get instant feedback, instant gratification, whether it comes through reads or claps or responses. It’s exhilarating. Intoxicating, really.

And what you need to be careful about, if you are looking to write on Medium, especially as often as I do, is to not let those claps and responses, and particularly the number of reads your story gets under the new earnings structure, take over your mind for the entire day.

And you definitely shouldn’t let these thoughts take over your mind the entire night either.

I’ve always been a pretty good sleeper. On an average night I get about seven hours of interrupted sleep.

But since I’ve been writing for Medium I have been averaging closer to six hours a night, and I wake up in the middle of the night more often.

Worse, every time I wake up during the night lately my mind wanders to, you guessed it, Medium. I lay in my bed for the next few hours tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling, and spending way too much time obsessing over what I did well and what I didn’t do well when it comes to Medium.

As soon as I’m awake during that late hour, there’s no going back to sleep. My mind is racing. Crazily racing, I’m telling you.

What am I thinking about specifically? I’m thinking about…

That Medium piece that didn’t land well yesterday.
That Medium piece that got way more reads that I thought it would.
That Medium piece I plan to write next. What should the headlines be? What kinds of pictures should I look for?
Curation jail. Oh, God, curation jail.
My Medium stories aren’t as popular anymore. Did I do something wrong? Do the readers not like me anymore?
Should I try something super out of the box? Something readers might not be expecting of me but might be happily surprised by?

These questions go through my head over and over and I can’t shake them no matter how hard I try. I just cannot — cannot — clear my mind.

Not good!

Obsessing over Medium every hour of the day can be bad for your health.

So what I’ve decided to do moving forward is keep writing lots of great stuff for this site but not completely obsess over every clap and response and read and statistic.

It will drive you nuts after awhile, I’m telling you. And it’s not good for your health or state of mind.

Because in the end, all you really have control over on here is writing the best content you can, giving that writing the best possible presentation you can, and then promoting it all over the web to your heart’s content. That’s about all you can do.

Claps? Reads? Engagement? Being curated?

In some ways they’re all a bit out of your hands.

Don’t fret if an article you wrote yesterday that you love hasn’t had the attention you think it deserves. Don’t lose another few hours of sleep wondering what you could have done differently.

You can’t obsess about Medium hour after hour, including those precious late hours of the night. I have a pretty strict rule of not checking my phone between 11:30pm and 7:30am, and I’ve kept to that while I’ve been lying awake in bed, no matter how much I’ve wanted to pull up Medium, check my stats, see if anyone else liked that one article I posted yesterday or the day before.

So please take of yourself always. Be well!

Do your best work on Medium, and do it often. But you need to have a life, too. You need to sometimes step away from the laptop.

I’m going to try to check out a little more in the days to come, and see if I can, finally, get some more sleep.

It’s a lot harder to be a great writer on here, after all, if you don’t take care of yourself.

Here’s how to stay up to date with me.

Brian Rowe is a writer, teacher, and constant dreamer. He received his MFA in Creative Writing and MA in English from the University of Nevada, Reno, and his BA in Film from Loyola Marymount University. He’s on Facebook and Twitter, and you can read more of his work at brianrowebooks.com.