Lately I’ve been struggling with my process for getting big creative projects done. They feel like they are taking forever to finish. Each step feels big so I put it off thinking I need a bigger chunk of time to deal with it.

I am a master procrastinator. Not because I don't know what I should do or because I'm not motivated - but because most of the time I just don't have the headspace to get stuff done.

I was listening to an Instagram reel the other day from Sahil Bloom talking about finite v infinite games. If you're not familiar with the concept...

Yesterday I searched Google for the phrase 'How To Stop'I couldn't exactly articulate what I was trying to find, but basically, I wanted some advice on what it looks like to slow down, stop, & rest. I assumed I'd find some advice on this exact thing. Except I didn't.

I love this time between Christmas and New Year. It's always so full of hope. It's quiet and gives me time to think, plan & dream for the new year. And like everyone I'm thinking about goals I want to accomplish, creating concrete plans of reaching those goals.

Consistency. I bet it's on your list of 'want more of it' in 2023. After all, it's the holy grail of productivity & self-improvement. And yet most of us feel like we're failing at it most of the time. But what if locking yourself into a rigid view of consistency is actually hindering you rather than helping you?

Daily planners are not a new thing. It's literally the simplest & most powerful way to plan the day. Take a sheet of paper (or screen), put the date at the top & start organising your day. I remember getting my first Filofax and then going on to design my first paper (then digital) planner pages.

Despite what it looks like, I'm not one for complicated systems.And while I admire all the people who can put their head down for days and go through long yearly reviews & planning rituals, that is not for me.

Unpopular Opinion: Procrastination has nothing to do with your motivation (or discipline) levels. I constantly defer tasks on my list to tomorrow. So much so that I created a list in my daily planner called 'All The Thing I'm Putting Off Till Tomorrow.' At first, it was a joke, but it's become a key way of noticing patterns in my behaviour.

Strength training has taught me more about consistency than any other thing I've done in life (including growing as a creator). The other day my trainer programmed inverted rows (under a low bar and pulling/rowing up). Every time I've attempted them before I have had to do them in batches. So when she said 15 reps I yelled an expletive in my head.

We all Need More Headspace. You know - time & space to think & make better decisions. More time & space to be creative at a deeper level. A magical place where you can achieve more with less effort.

I'm always better with a plan. Planning gets a bad wrap from hustle culture - as if it's some kind of procrastination for weak people who can't just get in and get work done.

My Writing Inbox is one inbox I prefer full not empty

Ideas take time to emerge. I rarely go from a new spark idea to a fully formed thesis in one spark writing session. They need time to soak & marinate. Often over days, weeks or even months.

I've been building what I now call my Spark Writing habit for the past 3 years. I'm not sure I've explained this before, but It's actually what set me on the path of becoming a creator and writing online. The more I built knowledge privately, the more I wanted to share publicly.

Even after 10+ years as a content marketer, I still hate that moment at the start of the week when I’m staring down the barrel of a blank screen, wondering what to post.So I swapped a blank screen for a 🏦 Content Bank full of ideas.

Capturing ideas is the single most important thing I do as a creator everyday.It's a cornerstone habit that cascades into every part of my content creation. When I sit down to 'do content' I don't have to spend any time brainstorming ideas. I have more than enough ideas to work with because I've captured them beforehand.

Most creators spend the majority of their writing time... writing content.And at first, this seems logical. You need to create content right? But if the only time you ever write is to produce content - you're on a downward spiral to burnout.Instead, I spend 80% of my time 'Think Writing' and 20% 'Content Writing'

Why do we subject ourselves to so many unwritten rules as creators and writers? One of these unwritten rules I decided to ditch was: If I didn't write it last week I MUST write it this week.

For the past 2 years I have had one morning routine: Wake Up Make Coffee & Write. It doesn’t matter if it’s a weekday or weekend, I'm on holiday, in the middle of a busy time at work, or whatever - I do the same thing each morning.

When I'm not creating content for the internet I'm a marketing coach.It took me a long time to embrace the role of coach in my life. When I first got started I thought I was supposed to have all the answers and that was why my clients were coming to me.

At the beginning of each year I choose a word to theme my year. It's a word that focuses me and provides a lens to make decisions, take action & frame everything I do. It's less of a goal or a 'thing to do' and more of an intention that infuses my thoughts, my actions, my goals & my days.

Most people stop learning when they finish school or university. School gives structure to our learning for the first years of our life. But when we finish school, unless we continue to be intentional about learning & growth, we end up wandering through life, maybe reading a few books (if we're lucky).

Quite by accident the other day I stumbled across a way to create a weekly or monthly calendar view in Tana for my content calendar.

It's that time of the year again when we're all thinking about the new year. Making plans, doing reviews and setting goals. For the past few years, I've used a really simple template to reflect on my year and plan for the new one.

If you're a Notion user and you've been bitten by the Tana bug, but when you opened up Tana wondered - what the heck do you do... then I've got you covered.

In today's video, I take you behind the scenes into the inner workings of my daily page. After 3 months of using Tana, I've got some things that are working really well and a few things that need adjustment.

I sat down a few weeks ago with Rob Hasfield from Tana and opened up my workspace to show him through. We covered so many different things from my creator workflows, to how I think about organisation & then a whole second video on my Knowledge Management library.

Learn how you can use Tabs in Tana to start to create dashboards of different supertags that are grouped together. Build a projects/tasks dashboard or a dashboard for your content ideas to come together.

I was on the Keep Productive Channel this week! I was pretty stoked when Francesco asked me to show him through some of my new Tana workspace.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I can be notoriously bad at looking after my well-being. So I decided to use the daily page to help coach myself when I need to feel good. This method works deliciously well for me as a way to guide myself through what I need at any given moment. Hopefully, you give it a try!

Welcome to another video about Tana! Today is a short one and I want to share with you the easiest way I see to get started using Tana if this is your first time using a more flexible app for knowledge.

Traditional wisdom tells us we should have a lead magnet to 'trick' people into signing up for our newsletter because no one just signs up for newsletters anymore right? WRONG. Every day, no less than 5 people sign up for my newsletter without having to be coerced or 'tricked' by a lead magnet.

In 2 years I've grown from 0-18k here on Twitter and people are always asking me what the secret key or tactic or hack to unlock growth is.

The biggest creators I know have started on one platform and then as they grew they branched out onto multiple platforms. Because being a creator on a platform isn’t just about the content, it’s about understanding the platform, engaging with people and a million other different factors.

Social media can make us crazy as creators or writers. On the one hand, it's the perfect conduit to get our message out there and build an audience. On the other hand, we're constantly wrestling with algorithms, and the shortest shelf life for all of our content.

Twitter Impressions are down. That seems to be the only thing I hear from creators at the moment. And yeah, it sucks. But it's not the first time they've gone through a dip, and it won't be the last.

Content alone isn't going grow your audience on content platforms. As creators, our main 'thing' is creating content, so it's easy to see social media platforms as just big distribution channels to get more people to see what we are creating. But if the internet is just one big distribution channel for your voice you are missing the point.

It's the (new) age old question - Should you publish on Medium or your own blog? Over the past few weeks, I've had multiple people ask me why I chose Medium over my own blog or substack or the many other platforms I could write longer-form content on.

Just over a year ago I got started writing on Twitter. I always viewed Twitter as a distribution platform. A place where you came to tell the world things you created. But these days Twitter has become my main publishing platform where I test ideas and get (mostly) instant feedback on them.

1000 people. 30k essays. 7 million words.When I first heard that we had 1000 people in the January cohort of ship30for30 I thought I might have to quit my day job after all 🤣

The creator economy is both wild and lonely at the same time. On one hand, I feel so lucky to be living in this moment where there are so many opportunities for creators. And on the other hand, it's an extremely lonely place that's easy to quit

It's easy to get caught up in numbers on Twitter. There is literally numbers everywhere. Number of followers, number of likes, engagement rate numbers, numbers of notifications. It's enough to make you think that Twitter is all about numbers...

You don't need a million-dollar launch to have a successful digital product.

I've been on a creative sabbatical for the last 4 weeks and it's been the best thing I've ever done as a creator.

So many creators I speak to are scared to launch their first product.I suspect there are a lot of reasons but the main one I hear is "Don't I have to have a big audience or following to launch a product?"I launched my first product with 500 followers, no email list & I made $3k in 4 weeks.

Over the last couple of years, I've said yes to a million things as a creator. New projects, platforms, launches, content, newsletters, communities and more.

I almost wasn’t able to write such a glowing review of 2022. It was October and I was nowhere near reaching the (very reasonable) goals I had set for myself.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time last year launching products. I think all up it was about 11 products from templates to courses to workshops to guides. I tried it all. And I made a fair amount of money doing it as a second income. Launches are fun (when they work) and they provide a nice windfall of cash for that month that you are launching. But they are also exhausting work and when you are not launching… no one is buying.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time last year launching products. I think there were 11 in total. Launches are fun (when they work). And they provide a nice windfall of cash. But when I wasn't launching... no one was buying.

Here's what no one is telling you about being a creator... it's relentless. Being a creator seems fun at first as you proudly hit publish on your first blog post, or write a Twitter thread that gets more than a few likes and suddenly you start to build a bit of an audience.

I love it when I see people launching their first Notion template. After all, it's where I got started. I launched my first free Notion template in December 2020 and countless more after that. And by far the best advice I ever received from seasoned template creators was to put it on Gumroad.

Don't despair over Gumroad removing the pre-launch feature. Recently Gumroad removed their pre-launch feature. If you've been using it to pre-launch your products you might be wondering how the heck to do you do a pre-launch now?

Here’s an Unpopular Opinion For You: Having a day job and being a creator are not mutually exclusive.You can do both well & enjoy them. I do. Most people assume I’m a full-time creator. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Most of us go through our lives literally just running on a hamster wheel.We wake up, we do the same things, we drive the same way to work, or eat the same meals, and we put things back in the same place.