I.
Just over a year ago, I joined the Small Bets Community. The Small Bets team will bring in speakers on different topics, which are then recorded and uploaded. This past week, a workshop titled “Growing on Substack” by
lay waiting for me in the recordings directory. So, I clicked.
Now writing has been a part of my life that I can’t exactly wean myself off of. As most things go, a burst of initial motivation and inspiration fuels me along far enough to stay consistent for a few weeks, maybe a few months, but once the self-accountability wears out and the passion wanes, the project falls into the graveyard of experiments.
Except writing.
Despite 3 years of playing Red Light, Green Light with writing, it continues to stick with me. My other projects, I can forget about – relegate them to years past as fun experiments that didn’t quite catch on.
But writing, the bastard, just won’t seem to die.
II.
Elle’s workshop had caught my eye since I had previously written on Substack, when I had titled my newsletter “Effortless Action” with a bigger focus on motivation and taking action. Though after spending a few weeks on Substack, I had become more interested in ownership, customization, and control. So I migrated everything to self-hosted Ghost.
But hearing from Elle how Substack is nowadays – and with a bigger personal interest in community, interacting with other writers, and attempting to ship writing that’s useful to others – awakened the need to write once more.
So this week, I migrated everything back to Substack.
(This isn’t a post about where to host your newsletter, I promise.)
As I was migrating posts over, the dates, the gaps between publishing mocked me.
- A month of daily posts in March of 2021
- A sprint of 12 at the end of 2021
- A whole 2 posts in May of 2022
- A sprint of 10 in the summer of 2023
And it felt bad. This thing that I claim to care about – dropping digital messages in bottles into the sea of the internet, in an attempt to help others live lives they enjoy – I was falling flat. I felt like a failure.
But where does that feeling come from? Why wasn’t I proud of the work that I had done?
III.
Content creation advice touts consistency as one of the pillars of growth. How can you improve your content if you don’t get your reps in? You can’t close the gap between your taste and your work without a portfolio of attempts.
We see the greatest writers and their immovable writing routines, while we look at our own crafts and hobbies with a longing for the ability to dedicate that much time to it, and maybe one day replace our day jobs with the work we love. The greats like Seth Godin and Steven Pressfield preach professionalism - showing up - above all else, and shipping when the work needs to be shipped. Deadlines give us eustress, the pressure to show up, lest we be at odds with our promise to ourselves and others.
But on the other side of the coin, shouldn’t we let this come naturally? A more eastern approach might tell us that effortless action, Wu Wei, going with the flow, is a more sustainable, enjoyable route. Effortless action asks, “why try to swim upstream?” If it’s not right, if there is too much friction or tension, then something is wrong, and it’s time to step back and reevaluate.
So how do we balance these? Can the principle of “going with the flow” live alongside the consistency of showing up and shipping work?
IV.
Luckily, when searching through my digital library for anything I had saved on consistency, a Twitter thread by the great
surfaced.
The also-wonderful Jay Acunzo had posted about shipping work because it’s the day when you ship:
Creators need to take a Mean Girls approach to their practice:
“On Wednesdays, we wear pink.” Why? bc it’s Wednesday.
On Friday, you ship. Why? Because it’s Friday.
Not bc you’re inspired or things are perfect or this is brilliant.
be it’s Friday, and on Fridays, YOU SHIP.
- Jay Acunzo
But Rob talks about only shipping when you have something worth being shipped:
most of my favorite writers and creators are the ones who only ship when they have something real to say, even if that’s once every other month
consistency can be important, especially in the beginning
but sticking to some posting schedule can also become a prison for you, and cause people tune you out because they can tell you’re forcing yourself to fulfill an arbitrary obligation rather than give a genuine gift
-Rob Hardy
These two points of view were exactly what I was stuck on. It was a quantity vs. quality problem, and analysis paralysis had trapped me right in the middle.
Luckily for me, the lightbulb finally when off when
joins the party, and talks about self-renewing systems, using a gardening metaphor:
“if we try to push the harvest (publishing) more aggressively than we’ve built up the fertility (practice) we can’t sustain it as a self-renewing system.”
-Sam Sager
My problem wasn’t that my publishing was too infrequent, it was a signal that something wasn’t right with the system. Brute force publishing content for content’s sake means there’s something wrong with the system supporting it – it wasn’t just a character flaw that I’m not good with follow through.
It’s persistence, a commitment to improving the system no matter how many times you “fail,” that will then allow consistent shipping to happen naturally.
VI.
To make sense of all of this, you have to know the reason behind your consistency. Does the cadence, the time between shipped work, matter if you have a harvest that’s in-line with your goals?
Do you want to optimize for a discoverability algorithm? Are you a brand that needs to stay top of mind for consumers? Does the content or product require speed and timeliness?
Then the consistency of shipping matters. (output)
Do you care more about the quality of your product? Is there a specific craft you’re trying to hone?
Then the consistency of practice matters. (input)
Are you sitting on too many ideas? Not honing the craft of writing, but instead, the craft of idea generation? Is that okay with you? Or are you spending too much time “searching for inspiration” on social media, and not commiting to the craft that you’re really trying to hone?
For entrepreneurs-to-be, are you sitting on your perfect business idea, or scrolling “Top 10 Business Ideas” Youtube videos, instead of honing the skills you need to actualize them?
Focusing on consistency of product helps us cut away the BS of what’s necessary to ship. But once you understand that writers need to write, painters need to paint, and entrepreneurs need to entre-ahem… build, do you need that consistency of product? Or are you able to reflect on your practice and guide yourself back on the right track when need be?
Tell an audience you’ll publish weekly, and that’s what they’ll expect. Some producers need that deadline, and are able to ship a pretty good product week in and out.
Tell them that you’ll show up with a product when you have something to share with them, and that’s what they’ll expect.
If it’s not something you’re being paid to show up for, then why not put your head down for a while and hone your craft?
Just beware - if you don’t show the product of your practice, it’ll have internal benefits, but won’t have a direct impact on the outside world. Understand that shipping still matters. Committing to a consistency of practice lets the product happen naturally, but you have to be aware of the pipeline.
Sure, engage with the community you want to be a part of, stay top of mind, share what you’re working on. But consider harvesting only when the fruit is ripe.
VII.
In the Twitter thread above, Jay adds some context around who his advice is for:
People struggling with forward momentum need to hear that you need to keep putting in the work.
Do you want to ship work, but haven’t yet? Start with commiting to a product every week for 12 weeks. No tutorials, no optimization, you have the info you need.
Have you shipped in the past, but have fallen off because you’re not happy with the product? Commit to a consistency of practice, with an eye on how much you’re shipping. By all means, have an output goal that you can judge against, but don’t sacrifice your craft for an arbitrary deadline.
Join me on this journey to build a practice. Not because of an arbitrary deadline, but because you have a craft to work on.
Avoid getting trapped by perfectionism - ship when it’s an accurate reflection of where you are right now, regardless of how “good” you think it is, or how it compares to others’ products.
The past is in the past, there’s nothing we can do to publish yesterday.
All we can do is start again.
Cut
For me, writing feels so good. But it’s so difficult to convince myself that it’s the case. When I finally make sense of the scramble inside of my head, find the perfect sentence to describe it, and chisel at the structure of the piece to create something new, it fills my cup.
Though it seems like every time I step away, my memories are wiped. I forget the feeling that it brings, and it’s so difficult to get back into the motions again.