How content creation fits my busy schedule

Well, I keep writing every day (or almost every day) and people keep asking me about how that is possible given the tight plan of my working days (~20 hours of intensive and thoughtful work per day)

Out of my daily routine, I keep only 2 things for myself: a) One hour of Personal Training and b) Two hours of content creation

The real question is not how but why.

First of all, because I love leaving things behind. That can happen only by doing the job I do (growing customers), by teaching and by writing. Well, I do all three of them.

My mom would add: The only way to actually leave something behind is … a child my son ;-) Lucky me, she is not reading my posts :-)

Secondly, I write because I feel that some people may get some value of what I write. For sure I know those are my colleagues and my partners in different countries, our customers, of course, few entrepreneurs that they could be inspired or motivated by some posts and some founders looking to adopt a content marketing methodology.

Last, the truth is that I don’t push myself to write, I don’t consider it an extension of my working time, it comes naturally, not like watching a no-brainer movie but very close to that. Back in school, I remember myself writing (not reading) when I wanted to learn something (yes, I lived the pre-google era)

This is how.

In order not to get bored I write in different digital properties, thus different topics and in different languages (English and Greek for now. French will be added along the line I assume). For that reason, I keep posting in multiple properties such as:

— GrowthRocks’ blog

— Posts on my Facebook profile

— Posts on Facebook Groups (such as BAMF and more)

— Posts on Medium (which I only use as a link to other platforms as I don’t plan to get any followers network in there)

For the same reasons (to avoid boredom) I also use multiple formats as each property requires a different format

— Wordpress posts

— Medium posts (my favorite as it provides an awesome writing experience free of unnecessary options and disruptions)

— Facebook Native Posts (well here the writing or reading experience is not the best but Facebook doesn’t like external links (affecting reachability) so I have to write in ASCII art)

I select the topics randomly, out of the various inputs I get from people: Questions I get from my colleagues or customers, something asked on Quora, questions I have myself and that I would wish to investigate further. Very often I get intrigued by an outdoor ad, a TV spot, something that is happening in persons around me or to my self. I translate every single stimulus into a writing opportunity. I then write the headlines in a piece of paper (aka my iPad Pro) and I just leave it there for the time to come.

Creativity hits me in different hours per day and not necessarily the two hours that I devote in writing. So, because I have written down the subject lines, I start silently and internally to “develop” the content and from time to time I keep some notes under the relevant subject line. I keep myself developing content while dreaming, eating, driving, training (My personal trainer doesn’t enjoy that, as she says that I lose my focus)… The point is that when I sit down to spend the 2-hours slot, the post is already ready in my head. Otherwise, the 2-hour slot wouldn’t be sufficient. Not for me at least.

Two hours per day is enough if…

you can follow a simple rule: For a 2-hours copywriting I keep the 3–3–3–1 rule that seems to work for me:

• 30% investigation of sources and support material. Thus, half-an-hour googling on the topic and reading others
• 30% actual copywriting. Thus, half-an-hour typing.
• 30% dealing with visualizations, diagrams & images on the posts (I want everything to be authentic). Thus, another half-an-hour searching for an image and photoshopping the image I prefer
• 10% proof-reading by my friends and family and corrections based on their suggestions.