July 2024 Writing Notes

If you haven’t heard of Simone Seol’s Garbage Post Challenge, stop everything you’re doing today and go listen to this episode of her podcast.  

Just do it. Right now. Thank me later.

(Was I too bossy just now? LOL. Anyways.)

Welcome back! Now that you know what it’s all about, here’s a quick summary.

Goal: 100 posts within 30 days (word count per post: 2 to infinity)

Platform: Any

Mindset: The idea is to kill perfectionism and stop overthinking, and stop worrying about what other people think, and quit agonizing about quality so much that it gets you all paralyzed so that you can just show up as you are (or not; just stop overthinking it!) - In my own words, you just drown all that shit, and go for it, and have fun with it. That’s the whole point. 

(It’s not about posting actual garbage. None of what I posted was garbage in the end; just less overthought things.)

(And yes, it counts if sometimes you just post a pic of a flower, or your cat, with only a few words like "Hey! Hi!", or if you just share a great blogpost written by someone else, and only add a few word of your own to say how goo the article is.)

So...

I thought it would be hard. "But... what am I gonna post about?" As it turned out, it was easy. Scary easy.

It was fun. Addictive. I went kinda crazy. If you're on socials, you may have noticed an increased presence on my part over the last 30 days. Same for newsletter and blog. This was one major reason why.

(Still wondering what the fuck I'm talking about? Listen.)

My Results:

Note 1: I didn’t count or structure my stuff in any way. I just had fun with it. That was the goal, remember? I figured if I posted three times per day on average +10 more things over the next month, that would be it.

Note 2: So today, let’s say I’m only counting what I posted using Buffer to get a rough estimate. (Buffer’s where I do most of my posting and sharing; the rest is mostly more “manual” sharing and commenting.)

Note 3: I’m counting Instagram only, so we’ll multiply by 4 in the end, since the whole deal makes its way to 3 other platforms in one simple process. (Again, using Buffer’s free plan.)

Total for the last 30 days: 225 posts

Let’s remove a few, give or take 7-8 for occasional retries and corrections.

Revised Total: 217 - Or 215, or whatever.

x4 to account for  X + FB + LinkedIn

=> Ridiculous Total: 868-ish

(Okay, okay. This is recycled content, so maybe it doesn’t count. But who cares. The objective was 100.)

Check out my Buffer Calendar Screenshots 

(Just for the fun of showing off - (Only Instagram not filtered out here)).

Kinda crazy, right? I think this qualifies for a successful Garbage Bucket Challenge.

But the numbers are irrelevant.

What's relevant is that a major chunk of my perfectionism has been SLAIN. That was the real goal.

Now I'll relax a bit. Maybe. Maybe I’ll do only 100 over the next 30 days. We’ll see. Maybe I won’t count my posts any more than I really did over the last 30 days, nor will I think about this as much. But overall, it’s been WAAAY more fun than hassle. It was exhilarating in fact. Super liberating. I loved it. (Also, the main goal.)

I’ve been following Simone Grace Seol on Instagram for a couple months now. It is rewiring my brain, in a way that feels good. So is listening to her two podcasts. (Not to mention, her online courses.) Check her out right this instant. As I said, you can always thank me later.

It is wonderful not to overthink things so much. I would recommend it to anyone. Not only to writers and other creatives who need to get their work out there. Everyone.

Fuck perfectionism. Screw it.

DO SIMONE SEOL’S GARBAGE POST CHALLENGE !!!!!

Bye now!

Thanks for being a part of my email newsletter! As always, you can find more great stuff at my website and connect with me on social media.

Sincerely,

Nicolas