Actions do more than words.

Use words to source actions.

As an independent contractor/freelancer I’ve realized that selling plays a critical role in business. Like it or not, it’s a necessity, but it’s not my strength.

In an effort to learn more about sales I signed up for a sales-related email newsletter^[1] filled with quotes, inspiration and advice on sales productivity. Today’s quote applies to business as much as life in general.

One’s feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.
Florence Nightingale^[2] (1820–1910), English pioneer of modern nursing

What if I created instead of tweeted the next time something inspired me?

I want to post more content on my blog, so I’ve created a new rule for myself. Before I post something on twitter I ask the following question:

Could this work as a blog post?

This idea started by accident when I installed a Twitter plugin on my website and it started creating posts from everything I tweeted. After several posts were out there in the open, I realized that I had broken through a mental block and transformed my publishing cycle.

My old publishing cycle

1. Get an idea.
2. Save a draft.
3. Let it sit for a week, month… year.
4. Review list of saved drafts every once in a while.
5. Edit a draft.
6. Save more drafts, pushing old saved drafts farther down the list.
7. Edit a draft.
8. Publish something not even saved as a draft.

New publishing cycle

1. Get an idea.
2. Publish it.
3. Feel the pressure of something being exposed to the public.
4. Reopen the editor, start tweaking things, adding more photos and editing text.

My goal isn’t to create a life-changing epic piece of literature every time a write a blog post. This new method is more of a personal development exercise. I’m still trying to find my “writing voice”^[3], as they say. Part of that process involves simply writing more.

So lately, every time I feel a tweet coming on, I start writing about it. I get in a flow, and even if it’s not blowing your mind right now, it feels good.

Footnotes

1. www.justsell.com ↩Back to reference 1
2. en.wikipedia.org ↩Back to reference 2
3. menwithpens.ca ↩Back to reference 3