Master 3 Stages to Become Unstoppable Blogger

Blogging is an opportunity to share your unique point of view with the wider audience. And build a knowledge base for your future self.

But first, you need to focus on building habits (i.e., key to success) that help you blog with consistency. For example, build habits to create and track ideas, groom ideas for future writing session (e.g. topic research, create solution), and write ideas into blogs.

A blogging mental model can help build such habits. Blogging Mental model comprises three primary stages.

TL;DR

Stage 1: Ideation. Brainstorm, organize (e.g., into topic themes), and capture your ideas. For example, write your ideas in a notebook or use an agile tool such as Trello, Asana, Microsoft Agile Board, and others. Your idea capturing method should have minimal friction (e.g., accessible anywhere), so you can be consistent with it.
Stage 2: Groom ideas. Prepare your captured ideas for future writing sessions: do topic research, create necessary technical solution, etc.
Stage 3: Craftsmanship. First, outline topics and subtopics for your blog. Second, write a draft and then refine it - avoid real time revisions. Third, be meticulous with every detail. For example, blog title should capture the arch of the blog (within 8-12 words). It’s important to express an opinion, insight, or give new information on a blog - reader should be able to understand the purpose statement within 10 second (e.g., in 100-140 words). And keep paragraphs short, two to four sentences (within 100-140 words).
Do the work, finish what you started, and get feedback (i.e. publish your blog). Then improve - incorporate feedback into your next blog. Show up again tomorrow and repeat.

Stage 1: Ideation

You need a mechanism to generate, track, and organize your ideas to groom later.

Generate Ideas

You could wait for inspiration to hit you or take a more active role and come up with ideas (recommended).

Use themes below to brainstorm ideas for your blog.

Well-known problems. What annoyances have you observed in day-to-day life, personal or work?
Helps your customers. What friction points are your customers facing?
Value comparisons. As a software engineer, share your unique point of view on how two services would fare in an architecture and which one would you recommend.
Not so obvious. As a cloud software engineer, if certain services are taking longer for you to figure out, then likely it will take novice users even longer. Probably worth writing about.
Passionate about a subject. Write about topics that you are passionate about and enjoy writing. Remember, “Writing for yourself is fun, and it shows. Writing for others is work, and it shows”.

Whichever type of ideas you write about, try to create value for your readers.

Track Ideas

Good ideas are like a breeze, feels great in one moment and gone in the next.

Use a tracking method that provides quick access (write, update, etc.) and your ideas are accessible from anywhere (e.g., stored in the cloud). You can use tool such as notes application built into your phone, a well-known service such as Trello, Asana, Microsoft Agile Board, etc.

Experiment with different tracking methods and select one that works for you.

Organize Ideas

Arbitrarily, you could pick and write about one of your ideas. Or take a strategic approach and organize your ideas into themes (recommended).

Beginning each month, pick a theme and write about related ideas. To organize ideas into themes, experiment with different approaches. For example, tags (e.g., #DesiredTheme), agile methodologies (epic, feature, and user story), prefix (e.g., [DesiredTheme] - your blog title), etc.

Diagram below shows an example of Agile method (Microsoft Agile board) to organize and track ideas - with the ability to search/filter.

Besides the agile board, if you are a visual person, experiment visualizing your ideas as a tree branch/leaf.

Diagram below shows an example of idea visualization (tool, MindNode).

Visual tracking suggestion is to create a bird-eye view of your idea collection. You need to capture actual progress tracking, details, and more in tools such as the agile board.

Stage 2: Groom Ideas

Ideation is just the starting point. To transform your idea into a written blog, you need to groom the idea first.

Idea grooming routine includes:

Research to explore what other blogs have written about similar idea.
Through your blog, what can you elaborate: create value for your readers?
Build out any architecture/solution needed for your idea.

Cultivate your own approach to groom ideas, so they are ready to be transformed into a written blog.

Caution: Time-box your idea grooming duration. Avoid pursuing “perfection”; continue to linger in grooming phase is another form of procrastination.

Stage 3: Write Blogs

Writing Motivation (relevant tangent)

TL;DR: create a draft first - simply capture your thoughts without live edits/revisions. Why? Because you cannot refine an empty page.

Skilled writing is one of the hardest task, Period.

Give yourself permission to create junk: to create interesting and valuable content requires you to get average ideas out of your system first. You may end up writing a few paragraphs or pages before you land on a gold mine - a usable sentence or a paragraph.

Follow the mantra: make it work (draft), make it better (revisions), and then make it right (final refinements). In your writing sessions, focus on creating a draft first - capture your thoughts as they come. Resist the urge to change every word, sentence, and paragraph. Realtime edit cycles will slow you and may even cause you to stop writing altogether.

It takes practice to distill your thoughts into an effective message with just a few words. You don’t walk up to professional athletes and ask them how you can become them, but in one week. Well-known bloggers are professionals.

Writing is the game of tonnage: people with tremendous work end up becoming talented writers.

Remember, becoming a skilled writer is a marathon and not a sprint. Stick to a daily writing session (e.g. 60 minutes focused writing) and focus on building a habit.

Motivation: put a this above your desk, “will they turn the page”.

5 - Basics of blog writing

You have groomed ideas ready for writing sessions. But where do you start?

Efficient and effective writing session is a multi-step process:

Outline your blog. Sketch out a list of topics and sub-topics that you plan to cover in your blog. Outline gets the words flowing; plus it helps avoid staring at a blank page ;).
Draft and refine. Fill out topics and sub-topic sections. Write with little editing and revising. With completed first draft in-hand, now refine it. Remember, perfect is the enemy of good..
Helpful table of content (TOC). An effective TOC is a roadmap of your thoughts to give readers good clues about what to expect without ever reading your blog.

With basics above, you can write a blog (ok quality).

To create value for readers and make your blog timeless, you need to pay close attention to every detail (i.e. craftsmanship).

Craftsmanship of blog writing

Like a great craftsperson, skilled blogger is meticulous about every detail.

Be mindful of these six building blocks:

1/ Blog Title

Title is the most important building block of your blog. Refine it like a samurai sword.

Title has two parts, Descriptor of your topic and Topic:

Descriptor of your topic. It should cover the arc of your blog.
Topic. In the least amount of words (e.g. one to two), it should cover what the blog is about.

Below are tips to brainstorm titles

Use a phrase that you can own in your reader’s mind. For example, book title The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck*.
Where possible, use specific terms instead of vague ones. For example, “Mater Three Stages to Become Unstoppable Blogger” will grab more attention than “How to become a better blog writer.”
Keep the title between 8 and 12 words (50-60 characters).

Strongly recommended: do not use click-bait tactics. Remember, you are genuinely trying to deliver value. You do not want to break your readers’ TRUST!

2/ SubTitle

If blog title gets readers’ attention, then sub-title ensures the reader clicks on to read more. Using movie analogy, think of a sub-title as a teaser for your blog.

3/ Summary Image

Visually display the main idea of your blog. A thoughtful diagram will have a powerful impact - a picture is worth 1,000 words. Experiment with hand drawn diagrams - will add more value and could be fun too.

4/ Body

Blog’s core content comprises two main sections:

Purpose (Opening). It’s important to express an opinion, insight, or give new information on a blog - reader should be able to understand the purpose statement within 10 second. In two to four sentences - withhin 100-140 characters - summarize the main point.

Main Content. Consider incorporating following into your writing.

Use stories to make your point.
For ease of information digestion, make one point per sentence. Keep sentences to 20-25 word count.
To keep the information flowing, keep paragraphs short. Two to four sentences per paragraph.
When to use a new paragraph? New ideas get their paragraph. For example, you present a new idea, answer a question, or point to make.

5/ Refinements

After you’ve drafted, try out suggestions below to refine the writing.

Ensure you are using Active Voice - the subject of a sentence acts. For example, “Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.” (learn more).
Trim word fat: “very”, “the” etc.
To check for good flow of the blog, read your blog out loud.

6/ Footnotes (optional)

To keep your readers focused on the primary message, move referenced material (links, quote attributions, etc.) to the end of your blog.

Final Thoughts

Being consistent is the key to success.

To master any skill, it requires a ton of practice. Practice requires consistency. Consistency requires building habits. And building habits requires minimal friction to get the task done.

Three stages (ideate, groom, craftsmanship) discussed above will help you build habits necessary to achieve consistency and become an unstoppable blogger.