Everyone wants to grow on Twitter right? But what no one tells you is that as you grow it becomes pretty hard to keep up with everyone.

What's in a name? Turns out everything. Interestingly I've had so many conversations this week about why naming things is so important. It all started with Danny Hatcher last weekend when we were talking about using plan language to describe the notes he was taking.

Would you rather 10x growth or consistent daily growth? The Internet is a wild place where one day you are minding your own business and the next you are exploding because someone retweeted you or shared your product or wrote something about your company. But we have to remind ourselves that those moments are the exception and not the rule.

Notion will not save you. Neither will Roam. Or Obsidian. Or Asana. Or [insert other shiny new tool here]. Technology isn't a magic fix. Technology will only amplify your system.

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.

I spent some time chatting to my good friend from Ship30 Ely about note taking, my Notion system and being a better human.

If you've heard me talk about Zettelkasten or my writing process you've probably heard me use the phrase 'Follow Your Interests'. I first heard this term in the book How To Take Smart Notes by Sonkhe Ahrens and it has stuck with me ever since.

I love Twitter thread, but have been struggling with a good way to consume them so I get all the goodness into my note taking system. So here's how I'm doing that.

In culinary kitchens around the world, you'll find chefs everywhere live and die by the three principles of Mise En Place: Preparation, Process & Presence. Preparation helps me to feel like I've got things under control (even if I don't) and that I'm bringing my best to everything that I do.

I believe if you are creating & publishing online everyday, then you can build and sell a product. I've been writing online for the past 80 days. Not about one specific thing, but about a lot of little things. I've built an audience over that time. I've built credibility as a creator. And I've followed the signals to create products that my audience wants.

The thing that distinguishes Nobel prize winners above everyone else is NOT that they can relentlessly focus. It’s that they know the KIND of focus they need at a specific time and task. Study by Oshin Vartanian. There is a lot of talk these days about deep work. Long stretches of uninterrupted time for us to get chunky work done. Deep work requires a tight focus. It requires we turn off distractions and narrow our focus to just one thing.

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.

I've been struggling to write and create content lately. Oh, you didn't notice (or maybe you did)? I'm good at hiding it. I mean I have put content out there - but haphazardly. I have ideas, but every time I sit down to write and publish I'm blocked.

Do you find it hard to get anything done if you have a meeting scheduled in the middle of your morning? You're probably a maker (I find most creative people are). And the problem is that most of us creatives work with a bunch of managers who can compartmentalise their day into one-hour chunks.

I hate the word 're-purpose' when it comes to content creation. It makes me cringe so hard. The thing is the tools we use to make it really easy to create one piece of content, press a button and then spray it all over the internet. I call this the spray & pray method.

Today I want to show you how I capture ideas in Tana and use Supertags to make it easy to add fields and default content specific to certain content types. So rather than having a bunch of fields that are not applicable to certain content, you can add only the ones you need. Plus I'll show you how you can powerful search and filter through all your ideas.

Do you prep for your creator week?

I've been a bit quiet lately. If you've been missing the yellow essays of late, there's a good reason why... I haven't been posting them. The simple answer is... I've been in THE DIP. I'm pretty sure Seth Godin termed the phrase, but it's something that every creative person is familiar with and faces at some point (multiple points). Everything feels hard, everything is a push uphill.

There are so many different ways to come up with ideas for content as a creator.Depending on who you follow, you'll find so many good frameworks, templates & tools for brainstorming content. Leverage your expertise, learn & document, have content buckets, answer questions, curate content, use AI to brainstorm your content.

A lot of people ask me how I can fit everything I do as a creator into my life while holding down a full-time job. But when I look at my schedule it's an easy fit. I wake up early, I don't have kid commitments, I don't commute to an office, I watch very little Netflix.

I held myself back for so many years from jumping into the creator economy because I didn’t feel like an ‘expert.’ Even though anyone can turn on a camera or put words on a page we still have this mindsset that we must have something expert to say before we do.

AI is the future of content apparently. A few weeks ago I had an employee who submitted some email copy to me that just seemed off. The assignment was simple, take a podcast that was already produced and repurpose it into written email copy. She’s an experience content writer so I asked her about it.

When you've been writing for any amount of time you'll be guaranteed to come up against the 'I have nothing to write' days.I've got a pretty good pile of ideas that I keep on the go, but even then I experience these days like everyone else where I just can't seem to get the words out in the way I want to get them out.

Mastering writing templates will supercharge your productivity as a creator But most creators I know never take the time to create any. For the past year, I’ve published over 300 essays & articles, thousands of tweets & a weekly newsletter while still having a full-time job. People often ask me how I can produce so much with so little time and the answer is — I use templates for everything.