If you’re like me, you write too much helpful content for your readers. This 37 step process will ensure you write even less helpful content.
[Tweet “If you’re like me, you write too much helpful content for your readers. #37waystofail”]
- Wake up with only enough time to get ready and head straight to work.
- Listen to the news, talk radio or music that you can sing along to. This will distract you from independent and create thought.
- Your first work task should be to check your email.
- Start with the newest emails, not the most important ones. This ensures you’ll feel behind and work on things that will give you little feeling of achievement or traction in your work.
- While checking email, respond immediately if someone emails you even if you’re working on a different task.
- Check Twitter.
- Continue switching between your most recent emails and new emails. This can continue for up to an hour with no real measurable work being completed.
- Now in a reactive mindset, allow other people’s needs to dominate your headspace the rest of the day.
- Take a mental break to other content creator’s content.
- Read them with a mindset of regret that you did not publish anything yesterday so you’re reading someone else’s content. It’s important to focus on feeling regret. This will ensure you don’t take action and live only in the past.
- Add some of your articles to an article saving service like Pocket or Instapaper. This will ensure you always feel behind on your reading because you have no plan for when or how to work through those articles. They will sit there reminding you of your failure to make time to read.
- Turn on a music streaming service that is highly customizable.
- Ignore any playlists you’ve created, especially ones that are entitled “Writing music” or “Concentration”.
- Search through new music from artists you’ve never heard of.
- Return to your writing playlist after remembering you’ve created a playlist to help you stay focused on your writing.
- Open a distraction free writing program you’ve paid for like Byword, Ommwriter or Scrivener.
- Check Twitter.
- Stop to feel regret that you haven’t written anything original in over a month.
- Immediately open your web browser and open three tabs. A technology news site, a major news outlet like CNN.com and Facebook.
- Tell yourself you will only spend five minutes on these pages, total. You need a mental break from the upcoming emotional outpouring that’s coming when you start writing.
- Scan headlines on the tech website and click the Command + the link for the article to open each one in a different tab. Do the same with the major news outlet. You should have a minimum of 10 tabs open now.
- Scan through each article but never finish any of them. Remind yourself of the technology tools you still want and how messed up and scary the world is. This will take a minimum of 10 minutes.
- Having closed all the tabs realize you’re five minutes over your time limit and haven’t even started Facebook. Focus on feeling regret for your lack of discipline.
- Click on the notification area of Facebook and scan through your mentions and updates from sources you follow. Use the Command + Click method to open multiple tabs in your browser resulting in another ten browser tabs to work through.
- Because you left your account profile as “online” in the chat you will often get personal messages from friends that live on Facebook. Stare at these messages for 10-15 seconds trying to decide if you’re going to respond since they obviously know you’re on-line.
- Respond briefly and use the phrase “I was just jumping on to check…” hoping they’ll get the hint you are serious about getting stuff done!
- End the conversation and feel guilty about dismissing them. Regret (for the third time) opening Facebook in the first place.
- Feel disappointed there aren’t more notifications to look through.
- Check Instagram.
- Experience the phenomena known as #instajealous, a condition that happens whenever you see your friends’ filtered lives on Instagram and experience jealousy at their happy, perfect lives compared to your mundane, boring life.
- Close your web browser because you are now really ready to write.
- Stare out a window and think about what you want to write about.
- Decide a list post is the easiest because most list posts are seven points and that’s doable with the time you have left to write.
- Begin to think of topics to write about and realize that you can’t think of an original idea because your day has been dominated by reading and listening to other people’s content.
- Feel regret for starting your day off by reacting and that you didn’t wake up early enough and pledge that tomorrow you will definitely get up early.
- Give up and promise that tomorrow you will write. Tomorrow you will get up early, not check email, not check Facebook, not check Instagram, not check Twitter, not read or listen to anything created by anyone else.
- Feel regret that you said the same thing yesterday.
[Tweet “Your first work task should be to check your email. #37waystofail”]
[Tweet “Turn on a music streaming service that is highly customizable. #37waystofail”]
[Tweet “Focus on feeling regret for your lack of discipline. #37waystofail”]
[Tweet “Feel regret that you said the same thing yesterday. #37waystofail”]
