How I Learned to Unlock Consistency: 5 Lessons After Publishing 20 Newsletters

Hi, and thanks for reading.

Today, I want to share some insights and takeaways from my journey. Lessons learned after writing and publishing 20 newsletter issues. The one you’re reading is number 20.

6 months ago, I started writing on X (formerly known as Twitter). I was fueled by a passion for writing and a need to practice. I gave myself a challenge: post every day for a month.

The challenge didn’t end after a month. Now, I have posted every day since August 31, 2023.

To further practice my writing, I also started this newsletter. This was about a month after I had started writing on X.

The Challenges

At first, there were some initial challenges:

• What would I write about?

• How do I write a newsletter?

• How do I publish a newsletter?

• How do I create an email list?

• How do I stay consistent?

Each challenge made it so that I had to learn a set of skills. Without them, I would publish once and never do it again. Or maybe I wouldn’t even publish a newsletter in the first place.

But I overcame each of those challenges, and now I’m here, after 20 issues, to share some of my takeaways.

Takeaway 1: Embrace imperfection

To start the habit, you need to embrace perfection and focus on progress.

First off, this a great lesson when you want to be writing anything. When you sit down to write the first draft, don’t worry if what you’re writing is good. Because you can always go back and edit it later. You can always improve on what you have written.

What you cannot improve is the perfection of the blank page.

Here are 5 simple steps you can follow to steer clear of the perfectionist’s highway:

1. Start with a headline (Make it simple, and have a clear purpose)

2. Write an outline for how your newsletter should explore the headline

3. Fill in each point in the outline as if they were headlines

4. Leave it

5. Edit it

This way you distance yourself from the perfectionist mindset. You focus on getting your ideas on paper and explaining them in a straightforward way.

Once you're done, you leave it for a while. Usually, I write my newsletter on a Monday and don’t look at it until Friday. Friday is when I’ll pull it up again and edit it.

Takeaway 2: Define clear tasks

Define clear tasks on what needs to be done and when for your newsletter.

To make things clearer, ask yourself these 4 questions:

• How often do you want to publish the newsletter?

• What kind of structure should the newsletter follow?

• How long should it take to write an issue?

• What parts are there to the newsletter process?

Let’s say the answers are as follows:

• I want to publish a weekly newsletter every Monday.

• It should follow my template for an educational/actionable newsletter

• It should take no more than 30-40 minutes to write a newsletter

• Ideation, outlining, writing, editing, scheduling, featured image creation

Your roadmap for defining your tasks should then look like this:

1. Pick a specific day to write the newsletter (for me it’s Monday)

2. Pick a specific time (could be at 9 PM)

3. Carve out an hour to focus only on the newsletter

4. Pick a second day during the week to edit (for me it’s Friday)

5. Decide on how long you want to edit for (for me it’s 20-30 minutes)

6. Carve out half an hour to only focus on editing

When I have a clear idea about the duration of my writing session and when it will be, I’m never writing it the night before.

I’m prepared in good time, and the issue has time to sit before I edit. This ensures quality writing and fewer mistakes. Not to mention less stress and overwhelm.

Takeaway 3: Set yourself a deadline

Set yourself a deadline for every single task.

You will be more focused on the task at hand and not end up doing a lot of stuff that feels like work but isn't.

Here’s how I divide my 60-minute writing session into small timed tasks to ensure focus:

1. Use the first 15 minutes for ideation

2. Use 5 minutes to plan the structure of your newsletter

3. Write the newsletter (30-40 minutes)

When I follow these to a tee, the writing session will only take me 60 minutes or less.

When I don’t follow it, like today, I end up splitting the writing process into small sit-downs across 4 hours.

Takeaway 4: Plan ahead

Plan your tasks and newsletter ahead of time to allow for more flexibility in your system.

In the beginning, I was terrible at planning ahead.

I waited until the last second to come up with the idea for the newsletter. This meant I was not only stressing about getting the writing done in time, but I also had to come up with the idea.

I wrote the newsletter the night before I published it. I was stressing about what to write and never felt like any issues were good enough before they went out.

I only wrote one newsletter at a time. I had forced myself to write one every week, on account of my goal of it being a weekly newsletter.

Only during the last few weeks have I come up with the solution to these problems.

• I search and collect ideas, so I always have something to write about.

• I write my newsletter a week in advance, so I have time to edit and I don’t become stressed.

• I write two newsletters a week, so I always have a backup to schedule if I’m busy one week.

Plan in a way that makes sense to you. It will do you good in the long run.

Takeaway 5: Stay Connected to Your Why

Stay connected to the WHY of your newsletter and the purpose behind creating it in the first place.

I started a newsletter for 3 main reasons:

• Practising my writing in public.

• To learn more about writing and writing online.

• To create a foundation for making money online.

In line with my purpose, you should be defining your why by these 3 factors:

• The skill you want to practice

• The topic you want to learn more about

• The business opportunity you want to create

Know that whatever purpose you have for your newsletter, you can always change it along the way.

Know that you can also lose readers if the subject of your newsletters changes too much over time.

I encourage you to reflect on my takeaways:

• Embrace imperfection to focus on writing instead of self-critiquing.

• Define clear tasks to be clear about what needs to get done.

• Set yourself a deadline to focus on stuff that moves you forward.

• Plan ahead to allow for more flexibility in your system.

• Stay connected to your why so you don’t lose the motivation.

And remember that if you’re starting out, focus on progress and continual improvement.

Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter, which was longer than usual.

Having people who read and follow along is a part of what keeps me going.

Talk to you later.

Peter