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- Always settle
The idea of “settling” fills us with horror. And why shouldn’t it? In a world where everything is within our grasp, why would you ever settle for something less than perfect? Why waste your precious, limited time on jobs, activities and people that are not the absolute best for you?
Settling is almost synonymous with another frightening, but more respected concept - committing. It takes courage to say “yes“ to something, knowing that you are cutting out other options. It is more tempting to “keep your options open“.
However, refusing to settle and spending your time looking for superior imaginary alternatives is ultimately a less effective use of time than focusing on one thing (even if it doesn’t work out eventually).
The mastery of every craft essentially means settling for that option and missing out on the many other things you can spend your time on. A world-class chef can rarely become a master sky-diver too.
The future is always better in our imaginations, but in the end, we have to make our choice - before it has been made for us.
The best part? When you commit, the anxiety of worrying about the future disappears and you can only move forward in one direction - the right one.
⏰ ✍️ 7 Habits To Make You A Great Content Writer
As with all crafts, content writing requires you to put in the hours to make progress. To help get you started, Yael Klass has outlined 7 steps that you need to master to become a capable writer.
Read
Reading is how you feed your brain so that when you sit down to write, it will draw from a well of ideas. Read articles and reports related to your field, read marketing material from good marketers, read engaging novels. It’s all helpful.
Record
Write down great ideas. Keep a swipe file for writing gems you come across - headlines, sentences, images, etc., and a scrap file where you write down your observations and drafts, so you can use them later.
Research
Focus on the topic of your content. Search for strong keywords, see what results Google shows, see what terms drive traffic to your close competitors.
Ask real people
Go to the source - to the people who are the most familiar with your subject, and ask them questions. This makes your content stronger and more reliable.
Organise your time and tasks
Plan how much time you should spend on writing, research, editing, etc. Keep in mind other tasks like admin.
Write
Developing a daily writing practice is essential - to keep it interesting, mix in games to spice it up. Write as many words as you can in ten minutes, freewrite, write 10 variations of a single sentence, etc.
Measure
Your writing has goals attached to it - traffic, leads, conversions, etc. Check if your work is hitting the right goals - is it bringing the right results, reaching the target audience, ranking for the chosen keywords?
I recommend you read the full article here.
📚 Shelf Shocks 💥
1. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sönke Ahrens
When learning, new information is rarely transferred directly to our minds - usually, it has to travel through notes we take and later learn from. Therefore the better we are at note-taking, the more effective learners we will be.
Nobody will notice if you are bad at taking notes, but this will nevertheless negatively impact us. How to Take Smart Notes aims to teach us how to improve using the tried-and-tested Zettelkasten method. Stop getting lost in your notes and start making new connections between concepts to become a better learner and thinker.
2. Purposeful Curiosity: The Power of Asking the Right Questions at the Right Time by Constantine Andriopoulos
I assume you are a curious person, which Dr Constantine Andriopoulos claims is amazing. His book explores how using curiosity in a purposeful way enables some of the highest achievers, as well as the average person, to accomplish more.
Igniting the spark of curiosity is not an incident: you can prime yourself to be more receptive to it. Learn how to cultivate habits for curiosity, become an expert in an area much quicker, strategies for dealing with uncharted territory, and much more.
3. Big Capital: Who Is London For? by Anna Minton
The housing system in London is broken. This housing crisis brings serious negative effects on the health, finances, opportunities, and equality of Londoners.
Anna Mintori shows us how something we take for granted can be destroyed by global capital and the incompetence and greed of the government. The short book dives deep into the history of the crisis, outlines how it affects the city and the country, exposes the government’s incompetence and greed in tackling this issue, and shows that it can only be fixed by determined public action.
Fun Links ⏰ ❗️
When you share a link on socials, you get a preview image called an Open Graph image. It doesn’t always represent your brand in the best way.
OGimage is a paid tool that allows you to create a custom image for your website’s preview and ensure it displays correctly by adding a simple piece of code. The service comes with lots of templates for different platforms and can help you increase your click-through rates.
You've reached the end of my newsletter. Hooray! If you’d like to see more of my work, you can GET MY BOOK Write Better: A Simple Guide to Better Business Writing or connect with me on LinkedIn for more fun and educational content.
If you have any comments or would like to share what you enjoyed the most, feel free to get in touch! See you in two weeks!