I’m a pretty spontaneous person. I don’t have an idea bank or anything like that. I usually write whenever I feel like it, or when I suddenly come across something interesting and think, ‘Ooh, I could write about this.’
So yes, my posting schedule is extremely random.
One day, I realised that I was subscribed to far too many YouTube channels. The platform kept recommending loads of videos I didn’t actually want to watch, so I decided to clear out my subscriptions. I started by unsubscribing from channels I barely remembered or ones that hadn’t uploaded anything for ages.
Halfway through, something suddenly hit me:
‘Shit! If I don’t publish anything for ages, will Google slowly forget about me too? Will my readers think, “This person hasn’t posted in so long. Maybe they’ve given up”?’
I once heard a YouTuber say that having a regular publishing schedule is important because your audience gradually gets into the habit of coming back for your content.
Hmm… in that case, anyone following someone as unpredictable as me can only hope to stumble across me by fate. 😑
And once again, I hadn’t published anything for two or three weeks.
I hadn’t come across anything particularly interesting lately, nor had inspiration suddenly struck me like lightning—but that wasn’t an excuse. I should have been collecting ideas as they came to me. And if I genuinely had nothing new to write about, I could always expand on something from my previous post.
It’s not as if this was some groundbreaking discovery. I already knew exactly what I should have been doing. 😝
But knowing something and actually doing it are two very different things. And this is what happens when you don’t: two or three weeks disappear while you’re still sitting there, waiting for inspiration to deliver itself to your door.
There was another problem too: I kept forgetting what my real goal was.
My goal is to build my own online business. But sometimes I wake up and immediately get dragged into my day job and all sorts of random stuff.
Yesterday, for example, I was busy from the moment I got up until early evening. By the time I finally had a chance to write something, I was completely knackered. Even my brain had clocked off.
If I give all my energy to everything else first and leave my own business until last, it will always get the version of me with 1% battery left. = =
It reminds me of that story often attributed to Warren Buffett. He supposedly asked someone to write down all their goals and circle the five they wanted to achieve most. Everything else on the list? Put it aside and don’t even think about it.
Otherwise, I’ll keep saying that I want to build an online business while giving the best part of every day to everyone else. Then, by evening, I’ll be lying there half-dead, waiting for inspiration to arrive.
If inspiration saw the state of me, it probably wouldn’t want to come anywhere near me either. 😑