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Resources For Modern Workers

New content weekly to help you build your personal digital systems for productivity, self-improvement, knowledge, creativity & team work.

Browse By The Personal Systems You Want To Build...

Personal Productivity
3 min 11 seconds

The 'First Moves' Framework That Will Kill Your Procrastination Forever

The science-backed method that helps solopreneurs start (and finish) their hardest tasks
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The High School Highlighting Habit That Is Holding You Back and How to Fix It

Most of us learned how to study books & highlight in high school. And we're still doing it the same way.
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How to Generate Better Ideas by Trying Less

The fastest way to solve an idea is to leave it unfinished.
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Your Ultimate Guide to Time Blocking in Tana | Step By Step Tutorial

3 easy timeblocking approaches to fit any work style using Tana.
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Ditch Brainstorming: Here’s How to Build an Endless Idea Ecosystem Instead

Why You'll Never Run Out of Ideas Again Once You Set Up This System
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Why Your Notes Aren’t Working for You (And the One Shift You Need to Make)

Traditional note-taking methods mostly feel like information storage. You spend so much time organising, categorising, and filing rather than the real work of exploring & working with ideas.
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How to Use AI to Kickstart Your Writing—Without Getting Generic Content

How to Turn a Messy Brain Dump Into an Outline Using AI in 10 Minutes (and while chilling on the couch)
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Supercharge Your Tana Day Page with Related Content - 10 Must-Have Sections

I've always loved how Tana keeps everything at my fingertips. But with the new Related Content feature, it's like having a supercharged dashboard right on my day page!
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Create Your Ultimate Digital Bullet Journal with Tana: Step-by-Step Guide

I have always loved the Bullet Journal system. It's simple & yet a profound way to get things out of your head and stay focused throughout the day.
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How To Create New Ideas From Old Content With A Simple GPT Prompt called 'Pretend Podcast'

Breath fresh life into old content with a simple chatGPT prompt that will get you thinking in ways you never thought of before
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Managing Your Time Is So 1990's. This Is What All The Cool Kids Are Doing...

I've experimented with A LOT of ways to manage my time. Traditionally I would think about how long a task would take me to complete and then use time blocking to schedule it into my day. But some days I would smash through some pretty big tasks and still be fresh at the end and other days I could hardly complete one relatively small task.
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Goal Setting Is Highly Overrated. Here's What I Do Instead.

I hate goals. There I said it. I don't have a 10-year plan. I hardly even have a 1-year plan. Sure, goals can be good aligning you to your future and giving you the motivation to get there. But for me they make me feel boxed in, locked into a future I'm not even sure I'll like.
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Why You're Probably Failing At Weekly Planning

Most people fail at planning their week because they have too much freedom and not enough constraints. I recently wrote about how I have split my weeks into maker and manager time. But between maker and manager, I also have to juggle different roles in my work - and I suspect most of us are the same. Whether you're an employee or an entrepreneur, there are always different types of work you can be doing on any given day.
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Are We Missing The Whole Point Of Productivity?

In any professional kitchen you'll find the three main values of Mis En Place in action: Preparation, Process & Presence. And they work beyond the kitchen too in life and work. But what I find in many productivity circles is that there is a heavy focus on preparation and process, but very little on presence.
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Start Wasting Time If You Want To Be More Productive

Have a browse on Quora around productivity and you'll quickly realise people are OBSESSED with eliminating time wastage. Have we become so productivity obsessed that we are this concerned with wasting minutes and seconds in our days? Elevating 'being productive' above things like hobbies, social activities, and friends.
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The Only Real Way To 'DO' Email Is To Just Not Do Email

I hate email. But for years I faithfully held to the Inbox Zero mentality. Clearing my inbox every day, filing everything away in it's rightful place. Only to be filled up again in the very next second. I even had a friend email me after I tweeted a screenshot of my shiny clean inbox, saying 'not anymore hahaha.'
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I Quit Productivity. Now I Get Far More Done Every Day

A quick browse through Quora & you quickly realise people are obsessed with productivity. We have become programmed to fill our days with as many tasks as we can. And we call it productivity. Wearing 'busy' around like a badge of honour. But what if true productivity was about doing less?
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What A Pile Of Laundy Taught Me About Finding Flow

I might be killing it with Atomic Essays, but that doesn't mean I've got my whole life together. For instance, In the last two weeks, I haven't done any washing, I've been to the gym a mere 3 times and my house is a chaotic mess. Sure I've had some big things happening, like launching my first paid product. But surely not everything needs to go to crap.
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Can We Ban Mid-Morning Meetings Please?

This year I started timeblocking my days. Breaking my day up into hour-long chunks and scheduling tasks to do within that time. It all started so well. Then a meeting would get scheduled in the middle of my morning and I wouldn't be able to get into any kind of significant work, because all I felt was the meeting looming.
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I Have A Magical Playlist 🎶 To Instantly Get You In The Flow. No Really

I've been struggling to focus lately. I'm flitting from one tab to another, constantly checking my phone, jumping on Twitter every 5 minutes (reading all the amazing essays). But getting any kind of focused work done has been painful and fleeting. So, this afternoon I grabbed my headphones, headed for a sunny corner in a cafe, and switched on a rather magical playlist. Almost INSTANTLY I was transported into a state of calm, relaxed, flow.
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You Don't Have To Choose Between Productivity And Play

Reddit can be a soul destroying place. I remember the first time I posted to the Notion Reddit after spending a weekend designing my first ever dashboard. I was so excited. I had designed and built this thing that was beautiful and unique to me. I thought I might find some kindred spirits on Reddit to share with. Instead, I got this comment.
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Pull These 3 Leverage Levers To Maximise Your Time

I'm constantly on the lookout for ways to leverage what I do. When I first started coaching I would spend my days doing one on one calls with clients. I learned a lot through those early conversations. But eventually, you reach a cap unless you can learn how to leverage your time.
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The High School Highlighting Habit That Is Holding You Back and How to Fix It

Most of us learned how to study books & highlight in high school. And we're still doing it the same way.
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How to Generate Better Ideas by Trying Less

The fastest way to solve an idea is to leave it unfinished.
Read post

Ditch Brainstorming: Here’s How to Build an Endless Idea Ecosystem Instead

Why You'll Never Run Out of Ideas Again Once You Set Up This System
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Why Your Notes Aren’t Working for You (And the One Shift You Need to Make)

Traditional note-taking methods mostly feel like information storage. You spend so much time organising, categorising, and filing rather than the real work of exploring & working with ideas.
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4 Simple Strategies to Finally Review Your Notes Consistently

How to Turn Reviewing Your Notes into a Habit You Actually Enjoy
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How to Find and Share Ideas No One Else Is Talking About

Three beliefs held me back from getting started sharing my ideas online. (And the simple shift I made to overcome them) ↓
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Talk It Out: 3 Effective Ways to Capture Ideas with Your Voice

Capturing ideas might be one of the most important practices we can develop as humans. But is writing or typing the only way to capture those ideas? Think again...
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The Unexpected Way to Gain Deep Insights from Social Media

Social media gets a bad wrap these days. And for some good reasons. It's easy to get caught up with the doomscrolling, letting it distract us, getting into arguments we shouldn't, helping us procrastinate, not doing good things for our mental health. And yet. It's still my biggest category of saved items in my knowledge library & serves me up a wealth of new ideas every single day.
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3 Weird Things I Do to Stay Inspired Every Day

One weird habit has kept me consistently writing for the past four years.Before I was known as Ev Chapman, Prolific Creator. I was Ev Chapman, Wannabe creator.
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4 Simple Steps to Make Your Notes More Useful In Real Life Projects

What if you didn't have to start each project with a blank page?
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Your Ultimate Guide to Time Blocking in Tana | Step By Step Tutorial

3 easy timeblocking approaches to fit any work style using Tana.
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Supercharge Your Tana Day Page with Related Content - 10 Must-Have Sections

I've always loved how Tana keeps everything at my fingertips. But with the new Related Content feature, it's like having a supercharged dashboard right on my day page!
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Create Your Ultimate Digital Bullet Journal with Tana: Step-by-Step Guide

I have always loved the Bullet Journal system. It's simple & yet a profound way to get things out of your head and stay focused throughout the day.
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Unlock the Power of Tana's New AI Chat: A Step-by-Step Guide

Can AI really make your note-taking more powerful?
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Simplifying My Day Page With Tana's New Core Features: Full Walkthrough

How I'm using my Daily Page now with the release of Tana's Core features like Related Content & Google Calendar integration.
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Unlock the Power of Hybrid Note-Taking: Integrating GoodNotes with Tana

I very rarely miss my paper notebooks now that I use Tana. But every now and then when my brain needs to arrange my thoughts visually & find myself longing for a simple workflow where I can go from notes → drawing → back to my notes.
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My Set & Forget Tana Weekly Review System

Confession: I've never been very good at a consistent weekly review habit.
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My Tana 5 Minute Daily Planning Routine (Inspired by Sunsama)

I am notorious for creating day plans that are unrealistic and have WAY too much packed into them. Which is why when I saw Sunsama's daily planning routine it really got my attention
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I Replaced A Full Time Admin Assistant With AI

How I Use Tana To Get Admin Jobs Done Faster & More Efficiently Than A Human Asisstant
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How To Use Tana's Random Node Feature: 5 Ways

In this video I show you 5 ways you can use Tana's Random Node Field to review past notes, mix up your journalling practice, and have a little fun.
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Easy Mode Unlocked: The Ultimate Tana Starter Guide

Tana is one of the most powerful knowledge management tools I have used. But sometimes all those powerful features can overshadow just how simple it can be to get started. And I guarantee that most people are overthinking it from the very start.
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Create A Custom Affirmations App In Tana: Step By Step Tutorial

Throw away your Affirmations apps & subscriptions and build your very own custom one in Tana
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This One Thing Stands Between You And Your Favourite Creator

I'm tempted to stop my daily creator count. Not because I'm not proud of it. I am. And it gives me fuel every day I can advance the counter. But what I never want it to become is a roadblock for new creators who look at it and think, I could never do that. Because 123 days ago that counter was 0.
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Why Most Good Creators Are Failing To Launch Their First Product

Why would people buy this? So many creators I speak to have a level of guilt that plagues them before launch. A niggling feeling that this seemed too easy to build or too obvious. Why would anyone pay money for this? Why isn't everyone creating this? Why would someone want to buy this from me?
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How To Get Through Hard Days By Leaning On Past Experience

Hello dear friend, the dip. We meet again. Not going to lie, this last week has been a bit hard. I'm feeling a bit low energy, struggling to write & finding it hard to engage with people in a meaningful way. I've been asking myself why? Is it because I'm coming off the back of 3 product launches? Maybe it's because we're 3 weeks into what looks like a long lockdown in Sydney?
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When Showing Up As A Creator Means Giving Yourself A Break

Yesterday was the first time in 105 days in which I didn't publish an atomic essay. After watching the Twitter threads masterclass with Dickie & Cole I decided I wanted to execute on a Twitter thread I'd been thinking about. Two hours later I hit publish. I could have shipped, I had plenty of essays in my up next pile to work on. But I didn't. I had more than shown up for myself as a creator. So why did I feel so guilty, so worried? It felt weird and wrong and I wondered if I'd even made the right decision.
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How To Balance Thinking Deeply While Shipping Daily

Writing every day can be tough. Some days it can feel like groundhog day. Ideation, draft, write, publish. Every day. But what if an idea requires a little more deep thinking? How do you give each idea the time and thought it deserves while still shipping daily?
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Four Tools Every Creator Needs to Ship Creative Work At Pace

How do you continue to be creative over long periods and at speed? As well as having a full-time job that keeps me pretty busy, I've recently become a creator, a maker of products, and a co-founder of a SAAS company.
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How I Went From Wannabe Creator To Creator in 100 Days

In 10 years of being a wannabe creator, I produced a grand total of 100 pieces of content on the internet. It was always the same pattern. Super excited about an idea I dreamed about it, planned everything creating a cool name and beautiful design before I even had any content. When I did put content out, it was hard to get anyone to read it except my beautiful supportive IRL friends.
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5 Mistakes Early Stage Creators Make That Are Holding Them Back

I've been shipping for 99 days and 3 cohorts. Here are some mistakes I see early shippers making.
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I'm Not Formally Qualified To Be Doing Any Of This 😱

Traditional schooling needs a major overhaul. Throughout my last 2 years of high school, I sat in Maths class boycotting the fact that it wasn't a required subject, but our school had made it required for us. Day after day I argued with my teacher about how utterly worthless it was for me to be learning any of these concepts that I would NEVER need to know in real life.
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Systems Won't Save You From Yourself. Here's What Will...

That shiny new tool, or template or system is not going to save you from the perceived disorganised mess that you are. We've all been there. Being blinded by that shiny new toy that promises ULTIMATE PRODUCTIVITY. Only to find it months or weeks later laying dormant on our computers, untouched, in the graveyard of other good ideas we've abandoned. And then beating ourselves up, wondering why we just can't contort ourselves into this perfect system?
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My #1 Secret To Generating New Ideas Daily

You'd think that after 85 days of writing I would have it down. But even I still find it hard to write some days. I have various methods that I employ when I'm not feeling the writing vibes including jumping into a book or an article that will undoubtedly create the spark I need. Or sitting with my Zettelkasten notes and wandering around until my brain is fired up and ready to go.
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The Secret To Shipping Creative Work Daily Without Burning Out

Are you a crafter or a creative? Chefs are masters of their craft. Day after day they show up and they replicate tried and true recipes and techniques. Most of the time they are simply practicing their craft. Assembling the same dishes with precision day after day.
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No. You Don't Need A Lead Magnet To Grow Your Newsletter

Traditional wisdom tells us we should have a lead magnet to 'trick' people into signing up for our newsletter because no one just signs up for newsletters anymore right? WRONG. Every day, no less than 5 people sign up for my newsletter without having to be coerced or 'tricked' by a lead magnet.
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Why You Might Be Struggling To Grow As A Creator

2 min read
In 2 years I've grown from 0-18k here on Twitter and people are always asking me what the secret key or tactic or hack to unlock growth is.
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Why Every Creator Needs A Signature Platform

The biggest creators I know have started on one platform and then as they grew they branched out onto multiple platforms. Because being a creator on a platform isn’t just about the content, it’s about understanding the platform, engaging with people and a million other different factors.
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Social Media Is Not Your Enemy

2 min read
Social media can make us crazy as creators or writers. On the one hand, it's the perfect conduit to get our message out there and build an audience. On the other hand, we're constantly wrestling with algorithms, and the shortest shelf life for all of our content.
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Why Are All The Creators Leaving Twitter?

2 min read
Twitter Impressions are down. That seems to be the only thing I hear from creators at the moment. And yeah, it sucks. But it's not the first time they've gone through a dip, and it won't be the last.
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Why New Creators Should Go Deep (not wide) On Platforms

2 min read
Content alone isn't going grow your audience on content platforms. As creators, our main 'thing' is creating content, so it's easy to see social media platforms as just big distribution channels to get more people to see what we are creating. But if the internet is just one big distribution channel for your voice you are missing the point.
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Why It Took Me 18 Months To Start Writing On Medium

2 min read
It's the (new) age old question - Should you publish on Medium or your own blog? Over the past few weeks, I've had multiple people ask me why I chose Medium over my own blog or substack or the many other platforms I could write longer-form content on.
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4 Ways New Creators Can Get Started Publishing On Twitter

2 min read
Just over a year ago I got started writing on Twitter. I always viewed Twitter as a distribution platform. A place where you came to tell the world things you created. But these days Twitter has become my main publishing platform where I test ideas and get (mostly) instant feedback on them.
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The Quick Guide For Managing Twitter Without Having To Quit Your Day Job

1000 people. 30k essays. 7 million words.When I first heard that we had 1000 people in the January cohort of ship30for30 I thought I might have to quit my day job after all 🤣
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Every Creator Needs A Community

The creator economy is both wild and lonely at the same time. On one hand, I feel so lucky to be living in this moment where there are so many opportunities for creators. And on the other hand, it's an extremely lonely place that's easy to quit
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The Only Growth Hack You Need To Grow On Twitter

It's easy to get caught up in numbers on Twitter. There is literally numbers everywhere. Number of followers, number of likes, engagement rate numbers, numbers of notifications. It's enough to make you think that Twitter is all about numbers...
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How To Sell Digital Products On Auto-Pilot (Without Relying On Constant Launches)

You don't need a million-dollar launch to have a successful digital product.
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I'm Back From Creative Sabbatical & I Have Thoughts 😁

I've been on a creative sabbatical for the last 4 weeks and it's been the best thing I've ever done as a creator.
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How To Launch Your First Digital Product (& Survive 🫣)

So many creators I speak to are scared to launch their first product.I suspect there are a lot of reasons but the main one I hear is "Don't I have to have a big audience or following to launch a product?"I launched my first product with 500 followers, no email list & I made $3k in 4 weeks.
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When To Say Yes (& No) To New Opportunities As A Creator

Over the last couple of years, I've said yes to a million things as a creator. New projects, platforms, launches, content, newsletters, communities and more.
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My 2022 Creator Revenue Story: How I Almost Didn’t 2x My Revenue This Year

I almost wasn’t able to write such a glowing review of 2022. It was October and I was nowhere near reaching the (very reasonable) goals I had set for myself.
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I Cracked The Creator Content Funnel To Sell My Products On Auto-Pilot

I spent a ridiculous amount of time last year launching products. I think all up it was about 11 products from templates to courses to workshops to guides. I tried it all. And I made a fair amount of money doing it as a second income. Launches are fun (when they work) and they provide a nice windfall of cash for that month that you are launching. But they are also exhausting work and when you are not launching… no one is buying.
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The Evergreen Creator Funnel That Makes $2k Every Month

I spent a ridiculous amount of time last year launching products. I think there were 11 in total. Launches are fun (when they work). And they provide a nice windfall of cash. But when I wasn't launching... no one was buying.
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The Burnout Free Guide To Being A Creator In The Year 2022

Here's what no one is telling you about being a creator... it's relentless. Being a creator seems fun at first as you proudly hit publish on your first blog post, or write a Twitter thread that gets more than a few likes and suddenly you start to build a bit of an audience.
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Why You Should Always Launch Your Free Notion Template On Gumroad

I love it when I see people launching their first Notion template. After all, it's where I got started. I launched my first free Notion template in December 2020 and countless more after that. And by far the best advice I ever received from seasoned template creators was to put it on Gumroad.
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The New Way To Pre-Launch A Product On Gumroad

Don't despair over Gumroad removing the pre-launch feature. Recently Gumroad removed their pre-launch feature. If you've been using it to pre-launch your products you might be wondering how the heck to do you do a pre-launch now?
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Why You Shouldn’t Quit Your Day Job To Become A Full-Time Creator

Here’s an Unpopular Opinion For You: Having a day job and being a creator are not mutually exclusive.You can do both well & enjoy them. I do. Most people assume I’m a full-time creator. But nothing could be further from the truth.
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Forget Goals, Focus on Intentions: My Yearly Planning Rituals That Set The Direction For A Powerful Year.

I used to hate yearly planning. And I think it comes down to my relationship with goal setting. I’m not much of a goal setter. A year is a long time and I don’t like to be locked into heavy goals throughout the year.
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Stop Cruising Through Life On Auto-Pilot & Open Up To New Possibilities

Most of us go through our lives literally just running on a hamster wheel.We wake up, we do the same things, we drive the same way to work, or eat the same meals, and we put things back in the same place.
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Why You Probably Don't Need To Be More Consistent In 2023

Consistency. I bet it's on your list of 'want more of it' in 2023. After all, it's the holy grail of productivity & self-improvement. And yet most of us feel like we're failing at it most of the time. But what if locking yourself into a rigid view of consistency is actually hindering you rather than helping you?
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3 Lessons Strength Training Taught Me About Consistency

Strength training has taught me more about consistency than any other thing I've done in life (including growing as a creator). The other day my trainer programmed inverted rows (under a low bar and pulling/rowing up). Every time I've attempted them before I have had to do them in batches. So when she said 15 reps I yelled an expletive in my head.
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Want To Accelerate Your Results? Find Ways To Show Up Daily

When starting something new you should probably find a way to do it daily. For years I thought the way to become a creator was to write two blogs a week (or 2 podcasts or two vlogs). After all, that seemed like a reasonable amount of writing each week.
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Three Ways To Finally Do The Thing You've Been Putting Off

I almost signed up for an 8 week summer book writing bootcamp this morning on Instagram. I don't need another Bootcamp or mastermind or course to actually write my book. I have an outline, I have half the content for it already! But I thought maybe this is what I need to get this thing finished.
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You Don't Need Another Guru To Tell You How To Live Your Life

Reminder: You are under no obligation to play by anyone else's rules. Most of us don't remember a time before the noise of the internet (& Twitter) meant every time you scroll you see another influencer or person with a social media account telling you how you should be doing everything in your life.
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If You Didn't Track It, Did It Even Happen?

I am the queen of unused trackers. A few days ago I threw out a tweet declaring tracking bankruptcy. It came as I looked at my Daily Page and realised that the tracker I set up to track my mood daily that I thought would be interesting, I had used a total of 2 times out of 50.
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Chase More Of What Lights You Up Inside

I have a decent library of books that sits in and around my desk. I designed it that way. Literally, my desk is built into my bookshelf. Every book holds a significant moment or memory or reason for being on that shelf.
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How To Fall In Love With Consistency

Consistency is hard. But when you master it, it's addictive as hell. 2 months ago I started training again with a personal trainer after taking a break for about 6 months. Starting again was HARD. Especially because I know what strong feels like. But what seemed hard on that first day is now starting to feel easier (if you can call lifting weight easy!).
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How To Tell If You're Stressed & Why You Should Stop Ignoring It

I've been a little MIA this week. You might have noticed, maybe not? On Monday I landed myself in the hospital after having chest pains & thinking I was having a heart attack. Don't worry, I was cleared of any heart problems.
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Consistency Is Hard Dammit.

This is going to be an uncomfortable essay about consistency. I am going to put a caveat at the beginning to say I am NOT the queen of consistency. Most of the time I write about things I'm currently experiencing and thinking about. So take this as much as an essay I'm writing for myself as for anyone else.
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