Hacks For Lazy Writers
How Do You Know If You Are Pushing Yourself Hard Enough?
Asking myself the question, “Am I pushing myself hard enough?” usually comes after comparing myself to other writers. I look at their achievements and often wonder if I’m doing enough or if what I am doing is working. If single mothers can balance multiple jobs, school and taking care of their kids, what’s stopping me from working a little harder?
That’s before I understood what it cost to achieve your goals, how overwhelming balancing multiple things can be, and its impact on the quality of your work when you don’t have support.
Writing became a passion that I wanted to turn into a career, but it wouldn’t take off without investing more time into my development. It wasn’t enough to be reading and writing more. I also had to learn how to market my content to increase my readership. I knew I was good, but I wanted to be great, and I learned the difference between being good and great is the investment you make in yourself.
My website is where I started publishing my content, but I wanted the credibility of a publication. I didn’t know where to begin, so I enrolled in a mentorship program. When I first connected to my mentor and told her I was a writer, she said, “how are people suppose to know you’re a writer if you don’t write? It wasn’t that I wasn’t writing, I wasn’t writing enough, and I wasn’t utilizing my social media effectively to reflect the writing I was doing.
Once the articles got published, my marketing process would consist of a photo, a caption, and some hashtags. I thought posting once was enough for my writing to go viral, but my weekly reports didn’t reflect those numbers.
My mentor taught me how to increase the awareness of my articles by utilizing excerpts and various photos to pique the interest of my readers. Now my followers weren’t just liking and scrolling to the next post; they became more engaged after reading the excerpts and were now clicking the link in my bio to read the articles.
To grow your following and remind your followers of “what you do for a living,” you need to post more frequently. A quick and efficient way to do this is to take five excerpts from your articles and post them over five days on your social media platforms.
Both my followers and my engagements increased instantly. It was a friendly and exciting way of reminding people that I am a writer and that my latest article is out for their viewing pleasure.
Still, I asked myself am I doing everything I can to be the most productive? Is my work ethic matching my ambition?
My mentor told me she would be up as early as five in the morning to get work done. I’m not a morning person, but getting up that early was one of the few ways to get work done without the distractions my family and my day job would bring. I was struggling to prioritize my writing and struggling to remain consistent.
Waking up early and working while everyone was asleep was one thing. Still, I had to establish boundaries and hold people accountable to produce the quality of work I knew I was capable of producing. To keep me accountable, I wrote my goals for everyone in my household to see on a whiteboard. I utilized my calendar by putting working blocks into my schedule to prioritize my writing time. I registered for writing retreats and participated in writing sprints where other people would hold me accountable. The guilt of not working on anything during the scheduled time is what kept me disciplined.
Nothing happens overnight; I would be lying if I said I didn’t have a sense of entitlement for thinking I should be further than I am now, but what I’ve learned is where I am is exactly where I should be.
Sure, I’d love to be at the level of Kenya Barris, but the reality is that I haven’t made the sacrifices or put in the time that Kenya has. I’m just getting started, and I’m looking forward to the journey and trusting the process one page at a time.
