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Howdy Reader! Today is a short one. I have a question for you. What is the biggest obstacle you face as an online creator? Everyone who responds to this will get a personal response from me. Best! ~ John Note: Some links in this email may be affiliate links, and I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Just so you know ;)
Howdy Reader! I didn't set out to construct a complicated, hard-to-maintain content creation system. Over twenty years chipping away at things, though, that's kind of the way it's turned out. I'm making hard choices with what I'm doing, and being very careful what I take on. How much can be cut out? We can cut, and cut, and then cut some more. Eventually, we get to something that can't be cut anymore and still be viable. At that point, we've achieved minimalism. Things are as simple as they...
Howdy Reader! I'm back home after a great weekend with some of my awesome high-school classmates. And there were indeed lawn games at the event, haha! In an effort to focus on them and the weekend, I scheduled my content ahead of time. It's a key part of The GAS Method I've been working on. I managed to get a couple of days' worth of content ahead. Here's what I had in the hopper: Two WordPress articles Two Medium articles (basically the same as the WordPress articles) Two issues of my Solid...
Howdy Reader! Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'll be touring my old high school at 11 AM today. And I'll be having a picnic with a few dozen of my high school classmates in the afternoon. "With lawn games," I'm told. I likely won't ever, again, be in the middle of such a high concentration of Generation X. We're squarely in the middle of Gen X, which means our spouses are likely Gen X as well. We'll probably be all content to talk about drinking from the hose and thriving on benign...
Howdy Reader! We all have that friend who drives until the gas tank is nearly empty. "I know my car," they'll say, if pressed about it. Maybe they know it pretty well. But if life gets in the way for more than five minutes, they'll be stranded. Or if something goes wrong with the car they know so well, they'll be stranded. I've treated my content creation the same way. So, so many late nights getting something out ... ... Because I had nothing in back-up left. I'd share dated posts from my...
Howdy Reader! This week I've mentioned that I'm trying to get ahead on my content a bit. Right now it's 4:10 AM, and I'm still putting things together for this. I'll make it, though. I have a small piece of equipment keeping me on track right now ... My Secura Visual Timer. Here's what I'm talking about. It's cute. I gave myself a limited amount of time to compose this email. The timer stares back at me and reminds me, visually, how much time I have left. The ticking is almost silent to my...
Howdy Reader! I've struggled a lot with consistency in my creator journey. It's cost me momentum and readership. At one point I was getting several signups a week for a previous version of this newsletter. But I wasn't sending any out. What a waste, right? This lesson I've learned time and time again. I can be a slow learner, but I think I've got it this time. Starting out (or starting back up) for consistency I began (again) in April 2025 publishing this newsletter regularly (six times a...
Howdy Reader! C. Northcote Parkinson was a naval historian active in the mid-20th century. His "law" provides insight into the practice of time management: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Given three things to do over the course of a day, it will take the entire day to do them. Parkinson's Law is a thief. Given open rein, it will consume your evening. It's consumed many of my evenings. I can't afford to let it take hold this week. My 35th high school reunion...
Howdy Reader! Our last pastor said a number of times on Sunday morning that he was a "cookies on the bottom shelf" kind of guy. Meaning that he made the key points of his message (the cookies) very accessible. Placing the cookies lower With my latest offer, my Obsidian Starter Kit for Content Creators, I put the cookies a bit high-up. I hadn't set up the problem I was solving well. And people mostly didn't know what Obsidian was. Plus other reasons. For my next product, I'm going to hit some...
Howdy Reader! Creating online can be lonely. You put content out there, and a lot of it doesn't get the response you hope for. Or even any response at all. So what's a Feel-Good File? I made that up. (Well, I thought I made it up, it turns out I wasn't the first) My Feel-Good File is a case file, with evidence. Evidence that I've made a positive impact somewhere. Evidence that all of my work isn't just shouting into the vacuum. You would have thought I paid for this This week, I got something...