The Three Month Vacation Podcast

Which is the most frustrating part of an article? Yes, it’s the First Fifty Words. We get so stuck at the starting point when writing an article, that it’s almost impossible to go ahead. But what if there were not just one, but three ways to create drama in your article? That would be cool, wouldn’t it? Well, here you go. Not one, but three ways to start your article with drama and get attention. ====== In this episode Sean talks about—Three ways to get your readers attention. Part 1: The power of story Part 2: Disagreement with your premise Part 3: How to create intrigue with lists You can read it online here:  3 Ways To Create Instant Drama In Your Articles ========== In 1974, New York had a problem that didn’t seem to go away. No matter where you rode the subway in New York, there was graffiti painted both inside and outside the trains. Young men with their spray cans covered the city’s trains with their version of art and soon the subway came to be seen as a symbol of a city on its way to the gutter. The city put up security fences, razor wire and brought in guard dogs They even went through one amazingly misguided strategy to paint all the trains white. Sure enough, The Great White Fleet as they called it, was soon covered with a fresh layer of graffiti. The city couldn’t seem to think of any way to solve the graffiti problem. Then along came David Gunn In 1984, Gunn was appointed as the president of the New York City (NYC) Transit Authority. Gunn had a track record of cleaning up subways in Boston and Philadelphia. Even so, the city of New York had been battling the graffiti problem for over a decade. What radical idea could Gunn implement that would turn back the clock to better times? As it turned out Gunn’s solution centered around a single idea The moment a train was bombed with graffiti, it was to be pulled over and painted. If a train car was being repaired, they’d ensure the car remained graffiti-free. If they found graffiti on a train overnight, the NYC Transit Authority would sweep in and repaint the train. Even during rush hour if they found a train had been “bombed”, they would pull it back to the yard and clean it up, so that the graffiti was nowhere to be seen. On May 12, 1989, the city declared victory over the city’s graffiti artists. Notice what just happened? You started reading this article to find out how to write the First Fifty Words. But before you knew it, you were transported back to New York, the subway and the graffiti dilemma. And the reason why you got to this point is because of the drama created by the First Fifty Words. When your article, presentation or webinar has a powerful opening, the client gets pulled along happily. And yet, it’s not always easy to know how to go about creating those First Fifty Words. So today, let’s take a look at three ways to create the drama. Method 1: The power of story Method 2: Disagreement with your premise Method 3: Lists Method 1: The Power of the Story In the 1980’s a persistent drought swept through the African Savannah. Watering holes dried up, food was scarcer than ever. Yet, one animal, the kudu, wasn’t affected as much. This is because the kudu can continue to get its nutrition from the hardy Acacia tree. Most other animals don’t tangle with the Acacia’s thorns, but the kudu navigates its way between the thorns to get at the juicy leaves. But suddenly dozens of kudu started dropping dead. When the kudu were examined, there seemed to be no reason for the deaths. They looked perfectly healthy and didn’t appear to be suffering from any malnutrition. However, the number of deaths soon soared into the hundreds, then into the thousands. Now we may believe that Africa is one vast open area, but in reality a lot of wildlife lives in vast ranches While it was devastating for the ranchers to see the kudu fall to the ground in heaps, they were also puzzled by the inconsistency of the deaths. On one ranch the kudu continued to thrive. On other ranches, their numbers decreased precipitously. There seemed to be no answer to the question, until they considered the number of kudu on the ranches. On some ranches there were a lot of kudu On others there were a lot less. As the drought raged on, the kudu had no other vegetation but Acacia leaves. Once the tree lost all its leaves, it would no longer be able to harness sunlight. In effect, the Acacia trees would die. In an act of self-preservation, the tree started producing more tannin. Not just more tannin, but lethal amounts of it. Biologist and African herbivore expert, Professor Woutor Van Hoven examined the rumen of the kudu and found the digestive system to be in complete shutdown. Now tannin is a compound can only come from a natural source. It wasn’t hard to point fingers at the Acacia tree. On the ranches with dense kudu populations the Acacia tree was producing 400% more tannin The tannin was getting inside the digestive system and killing the kudu. In effect, the Acacia trees were culling the kudu. On the ranches with sparser kudu, the tannin wasn’t anywhere close to these lethal amounts. The plant was clearly going through a stage of self-preservation. Story, it seems is easily the fastest way to get a client’s attention And we all know this fact of attention-getting to be true. But we aren’t sure where to find the stories or how to make them work and then how to reconnect them to the article. Those are three elements in themselves, so let’s start with finding the stories. I tend to find my stories all around me. But if that’s not a good enough answer for you, here are a few links. Go to www.smithsonian.com, or live science.com, history.com, bbcearth or listverse.com. In effect, what you need to do is to go any of these sites, spend some time reading and then save whatever you need to Evernote. Of course, as I keep harping on repeatedly, without Evernote, you’re just wasting your time. I can literally find hundreds of stories in a few minutes, precisely because of Evernote. Finding stories was a bit of a nightmare at first, but I soon realised I could find two or three stories a day that related to history, geology, biology and case studies. Added to that were my own personal stories, and so the first problem was done and dusted. If I could find three stories a day, I’d have about 21 stories by the following week. And no matter how prolific a writer or speaker I turn out to be, I can’t go through that volume of stories. But how do you know which stories work? Look for the unfolding ups and downs The most boring story is one that stays on a single track: either up or down. A good story is like the kudu story. It started out with the drought, went to the fact that kudu didn’t care and neither did the ranchers. Then kudu start dying, yet the next ranch with fewer kudu has no such trouble. The biologist comes in, investigates and we have the killer: the Acacia tree itself. It was an act of self-preservation. That story has bounce all the way, as do most good stories. You’ll probably have noticed the same bounce for the NY subway story. How the situation went from bad to worse, until David Gunn came in and put an end to the graffiti. Stories make for a dramatic start You know how to find the stories and how to store them in Evernote. You can even find the bounce in these stories. What remains is how to connect them to your main content. Notice how I finished the kudu story? The last line was about self-preservation. So what would the theme of the article be? Sure, self-preservation. But what if the last line was “speedy response”? Well, then the article would head over to “speedy response”. The last line of your story, whatever you happen to choose, is what creates the bridge towards the rest of the article. The first port of call should always be a story, or analogy When you go to Amazon.com and read the reviews of The Brain Audit, you’ll find most of the readers seem to agree on one fact. Many of them seem to suggest The Brain Audit is exceedingly easy and refreshing to read. But what makes it refreshing? Or rather what makes content boring? It’s clearly the lack of stories and analogies. You can’t turn more than two-three pages without running into analogies and stories in The Brain Audit. The Three Month Vacation Podcast has at least three stories or analogies and it could go to as many as six or seven. Articles, webinars, reports—they all have stories and analogies. To get your article going, you need to start storing stories You need to start looking for those ups and downs. And then it’s a matter of reconnecting by inserting the last line into the story, so it reconnects with the article. But stories are just one way of taking on the First Fifty Words. The second method is to disagree with your headline. Method 2: Disagreeing with your premise In 1949, the ad agency DDB had a reasonably big challenge. They were given the opportunity to sell the Volkswagen Beetle. This wasn’t just another car. It was a post-war German “people’s car”, connected with development plans that went back to Hitler himself. Plus the car was small, slow and considered ugly. Added to the challenge was the fact that DDB had a paltry advertising budget of just $800,000. So how do you create instant drama when the odds are stacked against you? You simply disagree with your premise, or in the case of Volkswagen, the prevailing premise Back in 1949, the war had ended and overblown consumption was the order of the day. American cars were big, bulky and drank tons of fuel. All the advertising pointed to how fast most American cars happened to be. All, except Volkswagen, that is. One of their earliest ad took almost everyone by surprise. It said: Presenting American’s slowest fastback. And the ads talked about how the cars wouldn’t go over 72 mph (even though the speedometer shows a top speed of 90). What Volkswagen Beetle advertising did was create intense drama by disagreeing with the status quo. The very same principle applies to your article writing and gives you the clue as to what you should be doing as well. To snap your audience out of whatever they’re doing, it’s a good idea to disagree with the prevailing situation or idea. And since you’re the one who wrote the headline, what better way to go than to disagree with your headline? Let’s take an example. Let’s say your headline says: How to increase prices (without losing customers) You’d think the article would continue in the vein of increasing prices, wouldn’t you? But instead, it goes the other way. The first paragraph instructs you to reduce your prices in half. Then down to a quarter of the original price. And then the text goes on to explain something you’re already quite aware of: that reducing prices is a very bad strategy. However, the technique it uses is what gets your attention. Instead of going in the direction you’d expect, it moves in quite the opposite direction. Disagreement works because of the mild shock, and the consequent curiosity to figure out what’s happening. But it’s one thing to examine an ad or an existing article. How do you create this disagreement in your own articles? Let’s start off with a headline: The 3 Keys To A Perfect Ayurvedic Diet. How could you disagree with this headline in your first paragraph? Start off by thinking how you could sabotage the perfect Ayurvedic diet. Got the idea, yet? All you need to do is think up your headline and think of the exact opposite behaviour. Let’s try another headline, shall we? How to get your projects done using an unknown system of time management. Now let’s disagree with the headline. Time management is an erroneous concept, which is why most of us struggle to get anything done. Haven’t you gone through whole days where you’ve had loads of time, but still failed to get anything done? That’s because we don’t really work with time. We work with energy instead. See what’s happening? You’re pushing in a headline that seems to talk about one thing but the opening paragraph seems to disagree. But you don’t have to keep the disagreement going. After you’ve made your point in a paragraph or so, you can go back to the original premise of the article. You’ve completed your mission. You’ve woken up your audience with the disagreement and they’re keen to read more of what you have to say. So far we’ve looked at stories. We’ve also looked at disagreeing with your premise. But there’s a third way that really helps when you’re feeling blank. And this method is called the “list method”. Let’s find out how we start articles with lists. Method 3: Lists Let’s take one type of list: The Netherlands 70% USA 30% UK 30% Ok, so let’s take another list: A bucket A spoon Two ladles of chocolate ice-cream Lists get attention and especially when you use it within the First Fifty Words. And in case you’re wondering, the first list that comprised of the Netherlands, USA and UK, it was a factor of social trust. In the Netherlands, 7 out of 10 people say they trust each other. In the US and UK, only 3 out of 10 people seem to have social trust. However, we’re not here to debate the issue of social trust. What we’re looking at, is the power of lists when used in the First Fifty Words of your article. The moment you slide in a list, the reader is intrigued And rightly so, because a list is a sequence of elements and somehow that sequence needs to end up in a logical place. So if your headline was: “How to get a business up and running in 90 days”, you could start your article with a list. That list immediately catches the attention of the reader and keeps that attention as you transition over to the main article. Lists don’t need much preparation Unlike a story that needs all that bounce and mystery, a list is almost sterile in its approach. You don’t even need any disagreement in a list. If anything, a list seems to take the reader right to where they want to go, just like a recipe. And that’s why lists are so cool, but there is a downside. Lists are so spartan that they stand out. If you’ve used a list to start up an article recently, you’re probably going to have to wait to use a list again. The very format is so conspicuous that it requires a good deal of time to pass before you can re-use the technique in another article, podcast or presentation. Nonetheless, they are great starting points and in you’re in a tricky situation, start with a list.   Summary In this very article, we ran into the story of the NY subway, the kudu on the African savanna and the story of the Volkswagen Beetle being introduced to America in 1949. Stories are easily the best tool to get the attention of your readers within the First Fifty Words. It’s what I use consistently in books from The Brain Audit to Dartboard Pricing. If you find it easy to read the books, yes, it’s because of two elements. The first is the structure of the book, but easily the biggest other factor is the sheer volume of stories and analogies that help you understand the concepts faster and more permanently. However there’s more than one way to skin a cat The method we looked at was the factor of disagreement. And the way to go about disagreeing with your headline is to write a headline e.g. How to buy a second hand computer that will last six years—and then go in the opposite direction. Tell the reader a story about computers that failed. Go the opposite way and you do what DDB did with Volkswagen Beetle. And this method sure gets a ton of attention. Finally we get to the third way: creating lists This method is the easiest of all. For instance, if I wanted to start this article with a list, I could start with the three points we’ve covered, namely, “The power of the story, disagreeing with your premise and lists”. And that would get the reader curious enough to want to read more. Then I could continue the article by simply explaining each of the points and fleshing them out in detail. But where should you start? What’s the ONE thing you can do? If you’re stuck for time, try the list today. But ideally the best thing you can do for the long run is to fire up your copy of Evernote. Start saving stories. Go to BBC Earth, History.com, ListVerse.com, Smithsonian.com and start saving stories. There’s nothing more powerful than stories especially when you’re starting up the First Fifty Words. Next Step: You know how they say "first impressions count?" Well, they do. Within the first three seconds of reading an article or an email, your client is already making a decision whether to read on. Many of us aren’t restricted to email. We use webinars, video, podcasts and presentations. And all of these media have one thing in common: they all need a great start. Learning how to really create outstanding openings (whether in articles or any media) is deeply gratifying. And powerful. More details: http://psychotactics.com/first-50-words    

What links thousand year old organisations with a bike company like Harley Davidson? What do football teams have in connection with businesses owners that can take time off? It’s all here in these free set of goodies (yes, 36 audio files) and a PDF. You’ll love how you can implement much of this information right away. Learn Why Marketing ‘Doesn’t’ Work. And Why You Need Structure In Your Business! http://www.psychotactics.com/bam ========================= You will learn in The Brain Alchemy MasterClass: 1) The Spider’s Secret: How to get customers to call you instead of you chasing them. 2) The Three Prong System: This tool will change the way you look at your business forever. Ignore at your risk. 3) How to create a huge demand for your product or service: This secret is over 10,000 years old and works every single time. And most businesses don’t use it. >>Right click here and ‘save as’ to download this episode to your computer. >>Here is the link to get: The Brain Alchemy MasterClass Free (Yes, all 36 audio files and the PDF) ========================= The difference between you struggling in your business and zooming ahead is understanding the structure of business Working hard is great, but it’s not the solution to your problems. No matter what business you’re in — a structured marketing system is the best way to exponentially increase your sales. The Brain Alchemy is about tactics and strategy that will form the very core of your business, no matter whether you’re just starting up, or have been in business ‘forever.’   There are over 253 testimonials for The Brain Alchemy MasterClass When I heard the Brain Alchemy MasterClass my immediate reaction was, “Damn, I spent so much on going to business school and they never taught us any of these.” I had a big paradigm shift in the way I was thinking about business and marketing. I also understood that no matter how much I think I might be communicating clearly, the receiver might not be listening right – this revelation came about listening to participants speak. And it is true the other way round also. Biggest learning was the power of giving. This really stuck with me – and also to give in the right possible packaging. -If you did implement something, what did you implement? I have been letting the material sink in and I plan to implement few of it. I will keep you posted about it. I would definitely recommend this course, because Sean is an amazing teacher. He breaks down complex subjects into simple manageable bites and makes sure that we are able to consume the information. The course is pure gold ! I would like to add that – I am a big fan of Sean and Renuka – mostly because it showed me that the size of the team doesn’t matter as much as how much power they pack. Thank you for giving The Brain Alchemy away, Sean. Regards, Shirisha Here is the link to get: The Brain Alchemy MasterClass Free (Yes, all 36 audio files and the pdf) http://www.psychotactics.com/bam    

Envy isn’t something we talk about, or even admit to openly. And yet it’s the one thing that all of us feel. We feel that others are going places and doing more than us. We even feel we need their spot and somehow that spot belongs to us. So how do we overcome this intense envy before it kills us? Find out how even the superstars of the world have to deal with envy. Yes, even people who seemingly have unimaginable wealth and success. In this episode Sean talks about Part 1: Is Envy Good or Bad? Part 2: How do You Cope With Envy? Part 3: How To Stay Motivated—And Happy. Right click here and ‘save as’ to download this episode to your computer. =============== No one I know is free of envy We all, at some level, are envious of others and even more so in our field of endeavour. If you were to look at my inbox every morning, you’ll notice about 60-70 e-mails. Then as the day progresses, another 60-70 will stream in. And yet not one of the e-mails is from some one in the same profession as mine. As you probably know, I’m in the marketing profession If you want to put a weird tag on me, you could call me an internet marketer. So why don’t I have any marketing-based e-mails in my inbox? It’s not like I don’t want to learn about marketing. It’s not that I don’t want to read what others in my field are up to. Instead it’s a lot simpler. The e-mails depress me, sometimes. And I’m using the word, depression, but hey, I’m never depressed. I’m grumbly, upset, maybe even a bit paranoid, but not depressed. However, I do feel this wave of frustration that takes my day down a few notches. I don’t feel happy and light hearted. And I figured it wasn’t depression after all. It was envy. This is my story about how I deal with envy And I kinda know it’s your story too. I think very few of us are free of this problem of envy. We look around us and we see people doing things that we aren’t doing. We see them earning a lot more, and seemingly with a lot less effort. And then there are those like me, who come along and talk about taking three months off. And I know that there are others who are working their tails off and there’s this joker who’s talking about the luxury of not just a vacation—but three whole months in a year. How is it that we can have endless bounty and still feel envy? And how do we deal with such a situation? Part 1: Is Envy Good or Bad? On the chilly night of December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman approached John Lennon outside the Dakota Apartments in New York. Chapman opened fire at Lennon with a .38 calibre pistol. He fired five shots in quick succession. The first shot missed Lennon, passing over Lennon’s head and hitting a window of the Dakota building. Two of the next bullets struck Lennon in the left side of his back, and the other two penetrated his left shoulder. By 11 pm that night, John Lennon was dead. But what was going through Paul McCartney’s mind as he heard the news? These are Paul’s exact words related to Esquire magazine 35 years later. “When John got shot, aside from the pure horror, the lingering thing was, ‘Well, now John’s a martyr. A JFK’. I started to get frustrated because people started to say, “Well, he was the Beatles”. And me, George and Ringo would go, ‘Er, hand on. It’s only a year ago we were all equal-ish. Paul McCartney, now Sir Paul McCartney was horrified. And envious. Back in the 1500s, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, was going through the same pangs of envy Michelangelo was no ordinary man, no ordinary painter. He was unique as the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive. In fact, two biographies were published during his lifetime. This is the artist who created the statue of David, the Pietà, the Last Judgement, the statue of Moses and no less than the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In his lifetime he was often called Il Divino (“the divine one”). And yet he was openly envious of another older contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci. So is this factor of envy normal? And is it any good or bad? In the August 2015 edition of The New Yorker, Richard Smith, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky gives us an insight into envy. Smith who began studying envy in the nineteen-eighties, writes that the feeling typically arises from a combination of two factors. The first is relevance: an envied advantage must be meaningful to us personally. A ballerina’s beautiful dance is unlikely to cause envy in a lawyer, unless she once had professional dancing aspirations of her own. The second is similarity: an envied person must be comparable to us. Even though we’re both writers, I’m unlikely to envy Ernest Hemingway. Aristotle, in describing envy, quotes the saying “potter against potter.” When we admire someone, we do so from a distance. When we envy someone, we picture ourselves in their place. So is this factor of envy normal? And is it any good or bad? The closer we get to someone’s capability, the less we seem to admire them. Instead, what might pop up is an intense state of envy. I remember being in school, and there was a friend of mine whose father travelled by Swissair. Back when I was in school, travelling locally by plane was quite the luxury but a trip overseas was almost out of the question. I remember being upset with the little Swissair booklets my friend brought to school. It wasn’t even like this kid was taking those flights. He just had a few hand me downs from the flight itself, and yet there was this factor of envy that swept through me every time I saw those booklets. Envy it seems, is mostly bad for you Admiration is good. Envy is, for the most part, complex and bad. Plus, it’s painful. Which is why my inbox has almost no e-mails from people who are marketers like me. I do read some e-mails, but just a few. I put in long days and I enjoy my work tremendously, yet it’s hard to watch an e-mail pop in about how someone just achieved some goal that you’ve been aspiring for. Make no mistake. At Psychotactics. we’ve been very successful over the years, and we’ve lived a life that seems unimaginable. And yet, the admiration slips away over time and I feel the weight of envy. It’s hard to admit it too But eventually if you were pumped with a truth serum, you’d admit it too. You, I, we’re all envious about others. Some to a large extent, some to a smaller extent. And no matter how fabulously wealthy or well know we are. No matter how far we’ve come in our lives, we still have to deal with that envy. Part 2: So how do you deal with envy? I remember the year 2000. I’d just arrived in Auckland, New Zealand from India. I’d never been to New Zealand before And now I was planning to spend the rest of my life on these islands in the Pacific. If someone showed up at the airport, took me to their home, got me a phone, and rented a house for me—well, that would have been beyond my wildest dreams. And that’s what happened. In Episode #50 of The Three Month Vacation podcast, I talk about our move to New Zealand. And how fellow-cartoonist, Wayne Logue, who I’d only met online, did all of the above for me, and more. To have such a start when moving to a new country was beyond my wildest imagination And yet, let’s up the ante a bit. Let’s say someone else showed up at the airport. That person then said that in fewer than two years, I’d be in marketing, not cartooning. Then that person went on to outline how my life would unfold. And going forward 15 years, that I’d have a membership site, clients, the ability to go where I wanted, when I wanted. What would I make of such a bizarrely rosy prediction the future? I’d think it was wonderful, wouldn’t I? To understand just how much I have, I have to use the time machine I get on board and take myself back to Auckland airport. I go to that point when I first got to New Zealand and that kills all kind of envy on the spot. No matter how many waves of envy surge at me, I realise that I could never have envisioned the life I have now. And this is true for a lot of us today. Most of us have lost some hair, gone rounder at the edges, and possibly have a slightly rough life. Yet, almost none of us would swap our lives for yesteryear. We can’t really stop ourselves from getting envious We look at the neighbours and they have a new car. We look at our friends and they are posting photos of themselves in Tahiti. And it’s probably worst of all in the professional sphere, because we believe we work harder and better than most of our peers. Which brings in that okinami—a rogue wave—of envy. Envy can’t be avoided But the time machine trick works. It really works. Go back to the time when you were younger, and for most of us, it represents a time when life was different. And yet, we like the lives we now lead. We like the gadgets we use today. Our families have grown around us and there are a thousand memories that would vanish in a flash if we went back in time. I don’t know about you, but this is my trick for envy I go back to my time machine. My time machine has one dial and it’s set to the year 2000. Just the thought of going back in time brings back pleasant memories. And yet, today is the world I want to live in. In a flash my envy is gone. But I still have one more mountain to climb. I may not be envious, but I need to stay motivated—and happy. How do I pull that bunny out of the hat? Part 3: How to stay motivated—and be happy instead I don’t know if you’ve ever fed seagulls at the beach On a sunny day as you head to the beach with your fish and chips, the seagulls are waiting. As you throw out a chip, there’s a mighty scramble, but notice who almost never gets the chip. Yes, it’s the so-called “leader” of the flock. You know the one I’m talking about. This male (and it’s most certainly a male) spends his time chasing away all the rest of the seagulls. You throw one chip. You throw another. You throw a third. But the leader never seems to get a chip. So which of the birds get the chips? The ones that are focused on the chips, not on each other. And this is really the secret of the how stay motivated. When we look around at each other, we’re too focused on the others, and not the chip. And the chip for most of us is our work. It’s the one thing that brings us the greatest satisfaction in our lives. Whether we run a restaurant, sell strawberry cream, write books or dance for a living, it’s our work that brings us a deep sense of satisfaction. And yet we make a lot of mistakes along the way. I’ve  made a lot of strategic mistakes in my life We were on the internet way back in 1997, and while I did catch on to the e-book phenomenon, I missed out on blogs. I missed out on YouTube as well, I started the podcast before it was immensely popular and then gave up in 2009, just at the point when it started to take off. And so, as I looked on, others took my spot. Yes, my spot! The way out of that seagull scrap is to look at your own work At first your work may not seem a lot different from your competition. However, over time you’ll find your own space, your own plum projects. And you’ll get yourself a group of people that love your work. The envy won’t go away, but you’ll stay focused on your chip. And that will keep you motivated. And that is the real secret of how to sidestep the envy and be happy instead. The envy won’t ever go away. You’ll always be jostling for space in a scrappy flock of gulls. But you’ll know when you get the chip. And you can fly off with your chip, happy as a gull on a sunny day. Next Step: The Power of Enough—And Why It’s Critical To Your Sanity http://www.psychotactics.com/power-enough-critical-sanity/

How do you write intensely curious headlines—even if a deadline is looming. When writing headlines, you often get stuck. Can grammar come to the rescue when under pressure? Find out how grammar class helps you write outstanding headlines in a jiffy. --------- In this episode Sean talks about Part 1: What has grammar got to do with writing headlines. Part 2: Why you need to break up your headline writing process Part 3: What’s the one thing you can implement today in your headlines You can read this online here: https://www.psychotactics.com/headlines-three-ways/ --------- Every year, 20 billion bottles of wine are produced. And 80% of those bottles are closed with a single substance. A substance called cork. The cork, as you’d suspect, comes from bark of the cork tree The bark has to be harvested, and then you get the cork for those 16 billion bottles. But there’s no hurrying the process of cork production. A tree must be at least 25 years old before the bark can be harvested. After that, it can be stripped of its bark every nine years. Even so, the first stripping is totally unsuitable for wine and used only for industrial purposes. The second stripping still lacks the quality needed. It may take well over 40 years before the cork is considered good enough to put into a wine bottle. As you can see, a cork tree can’t be rushed. Good headlines too need a little time. But in today’s world, we need headlines for our newsletters, podcast titles, webinars, and workshops. But is it really possible to turn out a great headline almost immediately? Or do we have to wait? What we’ll cover in this article is the concept of headlines in a hurry. We’ll learn three ways to write great headlines and to write them under pressure. But we’ll have fun, and instead of just learning three ways, we’ll go back to grammar class. Method 1: Headlines with AND Method 2: Headlines with EVEN Method 3: Headlines with WITHOUT Method 1: Headlines With AND Remember Windows 3.1? I sure do. I was a cartoonist still living in Mumbai, India at the time. And that’s when I got my first computer. It was a 386 and top of the line with programs such as Corel Draw and Photoshop. Right before I got the computer I would go through the tedious task of drawing a cartoon, photocopying it several times and then colouring each version. Clients wanted to see the same cartoon rendered in different colours and I’d spend trips back and forth to the photocopy shop. Let’s say I got to know the photocopy guy quite well. But it also wasted a lot of my day Then along came Windows 3.1 and I was able to scan and then colour my cartoons in under half an hour. From paper to the computer was my big leap forward when it came to cartoons. And yet several years later when I moved over from cartoons to copywriting, I struggled a lot with writing headlines. Every time I sat down to write headlines, I’d get the blue screen of death in my brain. Until the day I figured out the incredible power of AND in moving a headline forward. AND? When writing a headline, all you have to do is add the conjunction AND and your headline seems to dart forward. Let’s take a few examples, shall we? How to raise your freelance rates How to raise your freelance rates (and get a greater number of clients) How to create magic with your brand stories How to create magic with your brand stories—and engage new readers every time you publish How to keep fit over age 55 How to keep fit over age 55 (and still eat everything you want) What did we notice with those AND headlines? The first was the sheer simplicity of the headline. We start the headline as if it’s going to be a really short one. e.g. How to raise your freelance rates. Then as an afterthought, we add the AND. What this tends to do is give your headline more oomph. The first part of the headline, without the AND is good enough, yet the second part allows the headline to move your client forward. Which is why the AND headline has a far greater curiosity factor than the headline without the conjunction. When writing AND headlines I use the parenthesis or the em dash The em dash is the long dash, used when you seem to be breaking a thought mid-flow. It seems like you’ve already finished with the thought. For example: How to create magic with your brand stories. Then suddenly the em dash shows up out of nowhere talking about “new readers”. It’s brought in a new thought—a much richer thought. Now your headline reads as: How to create magic with your brand stories—and engage new readers every time you publish. But you don’t always have to use the em dash You can just use the parenthesis instead. The parenthesis does something similar to the em dash. It creates a continuation of the thought, and the client feels a greater tug towards the AND type of headline. Visually too, the headline is more arresting. When you look at the headlines side by side, or even in your inbox, the second headline seems to say a lot more. But because there’s the em dash or the parenthesis, it’s like you’re getting some breathing space as the reader. If you wondered why you had to sit in boring grammar class, well, now you know. You’re in headline grammar class, and you just found out how to use AND, em dashes and parentheses to good effect. Like Windows 3.1 (bless its soul) which got me from a bit of a struggle to super-fast execution, you too can build a headline in next to no time by using the AND. But is there a good way of using the AND type of headline successfully? Sure there is. The best way to use the AND headline well is to write the first part. e.g. How to write irresistible calls to action. Then you walk away. Your headline is already super-yummy. But when you come back, several hours later, your brain will have something to add to the headline. So your headline will read like this: How to write irresistible calls to action (and increase CTR by 30%). The space between writing the first and second part of the headline isn’t necessary, but it does make for better headlines. Keeping a break between activities helps your brain hum in the background and come up with a far superior idea than if you simply jumped on the first possible idea that comes to your head after using AND. Ok, first part of grammar class is done. Let’s go to adverb land; the land of EVEN. Method 2: Headlines with EVEN I’d never heard of the comedian called Michael Jr. Then one day, I’m lying on the sofa time scrolling through Facebook and this video pops up. In the video, Michael Jr. is talking about how comedy works. And here’s what he says: This is how it works First, there’s a setup, and then there’s a punch line. The set up is when a comedian uses his talents and resources to seize any opportunity to ensure that his audience is moving in the same direction. The punchline occurs when he alters that direction in such a way that was not anticipated by the audience. He’s talking about the adverb Yup, Michael Jr. doesn’t know it, but he’s just given a quick grammar lesson. And that’s precisely the grammar lesson you can use in your headlines by using the adverb, “EVEN.” When you use EVEN in your headline, you’re doing what Michael Jr. is talking about. You’re taking the audience in a specific direction—and then moving them to the punchline, which isn’t quite anticipated by the audience. Hah, you’re eager for grammar lesson No.2, aren’t you? Well here goes: How to rank high on Bing How to rank high on Bing (even with low Google rankings) Why you should raise your freelance rates Why you should raise your freelance rates (even if you’re not sure you’re worth it) How to quit your day job How to quit your day job (even if you’re cash strapped) How to travel First Class How to travel First Class (even if You’re dead broke) See the setup and the punchline? It’s everywhere, you know, this setup and punchline. When you read The Brain Audit, you have the concept of the problem and the solution. That’s a setup and punchline. When you look at nature, you notice a branch, then a twig. A snowflake has the same set up and punchline. And of course, when we go to headline land, the adverb EVEN creates a powerful punchline. It brings out that extra bit of information that you’re simply not expecting. And in doing so, it gets and keeps your attention. Just like the AND, it helps to use the parentheses or the em dash And just like the AND, there’s no rule (at least that I know of) whether you use the em dash or the parenthesis. Just be sure to use it because it creates that setup and punch line both visually and intellectually. Visually you can see there’s a separation, but intellectually you see that extra bit showing up. And you weren’t particularly expecting the headline to go in such a weird direction, were you? So remember: set up, punchline. That’s the power of EVEN. We’ve covered AND and EVEN. Should we go to the third grammar lesson? Let’s head to WITHOUT, which happens to masquerade as a preposition adverb and conjunction. Even if you can’t remember where it sits on the grammar hierarchy, WITHOUT does a pretty cool job when you’re tired of using AND and EVEN. Let’s find out how. Method 3: Headlines with WITHOUT To write a headline with WITHOUT, all you have to consider is the opposite. And you can do it with random headlines. How to raise your prices How to raise your prices without losing clients How to raise your prices without increasing the quantity of product How to raise your prices without considering the competition How to raise your prices without the accompanying fear factor When you write a WITHOUT headline, guess what you’re really doing Yup, you’re bringing up the objection in your head. Notice the second part of the headlines? They brought out the fear of losing clients, of needing to increase the quantity of product, the fear of competition and yes, the fear of fear itself. All of these are obvious objections to your premise or article. So what’s a grammar headline writer to do? Why it’s perfectly simple, isn’t it? All you really need to do is write some sort of headline and then think of all the reasons why it’s not a good idea. Or at least why you’d have some objections to that idea. Let’s take an overly simple headline like: How to lose weight in two weeks. What are the objections to losing weight? – You’re a foodie – You don’t want to go on a crazy diet – You don’t care about exercise And then you slappity-slap on the objections to the first part of the headline. Ready? How to lose weight in two weeks (without giving up your foodie habits) How to lose weight in two weeks (without going on a crazy diet) How to lose weight in two weeks (without needing to exercise endlessly) And there you have it—WITHOUT comes to the rescue. Isn’t grammar wonderful? We should really do a summary, but what would we cover? We already know the three methods to make our headline stand out. All it takes is just three parts of the grammar universe: AND, EVEN and WITHOUT. AND gets your headline moving boldly forward, EVEN does this little setup and punchline trick and WITHOUT, WITHOUT is all about objections. See, those Grammar Nazis were right. You should pay attention your grammar because even if your brain feels like it’s running on Windows 3.1, you’ll still be able to turn out super-curious headlines. So what’s the ONE thing we can implement today? Remember the advice you got about writing part of the headline first and then going away? Well, here’s a reminder. You may be so very excited at your proficiency at grammar class that you may forget to take that break. Leaving that task unfinished ensures that your brain brings up (and rejects) many options. Eventually, when you go back to your headline, you’re likely to get a far superior headline than just the first one you think up. Put space between all activities. This article was written over a period of three days. The outline on one day, part of the article on another and finally the article was completed on the third. And only after these three days, did it go for an edit. A headline may seem almost puny when compared with an article, but letting the brain relax helps you get a far superior output. And that’s pretty much it. Grammar lesson over. School’s out. Special Bonus: Why Headlines Fail In under 7 minutes you’ll be able to go through a system that shows you: • How to write headlines that get results every time • Why you don’t have to be a copywriter to write headlines • How to construct headlines, without making a complete mess of things. Here is the report: Why Headlines Fail  https://www.psychotactics.com/free/headlines-fail/

Imagine a client walked through the door and you could give them the power of X-ray vision. Would that client come back for more superpowers? Of course she would. So how do you create superpowers that attract clients? What three elements need to be in place for the superpower to work? Find out in this the third part of this series on "how to stand out even when the competition is outstanding". 

AirBNB was struggling? Was it just start up problems or was it something else? Find out how AirBNB, Zappos and other now-famous brands had to dig, or even stumble upon the biggest problem before they got their business off the ground. And yes, what you've got to do to find the biggest problem as well. It may seem like we know the biggest problem we're solving for our clients, but we're very far from the reality. Find out why this is the case and how to rectify the problem right away. 

If there's little or no competition, it's easy to be top dog. But what if there's oodles of competition? And what if the competition isn't just average, but utterly outstanding? What do you do to stand out in such a situation? Can you even make a mark? The answer is quite surprising

Most of us know of the concept of the “guardian angel” They come into our lives and they take care of us. The “kicking angel” is quite different. The angel shows up just to push us over the edge and then he/she disappears from our lives. In this episode Sean talks about How do we know when we’re being kicked? And what “kicks” do we pay attention to and what do we do. Right click here and ‘save as’ to download this episode to your computer #112: How Kicking Angels Help To Jumpstart Your Business =========== You’ve heard of a guardian angel, haven’t you? But what on earth is a kicking angel? Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s an angel that does the job of giving you a swiftie on your rear. We got our first swiftie in the year 2002 We’d just set up Psychotactics. And we were looking to sell our products on the Internet. Um, did I say products? I meant ‘product.’ But as most of us do, we were waffling. We’d been busy tweaking our website. We had been searching for a merchant provider for a month or two. We’d been thinking of setting up a sales page for about three months. We’d been yiddling and yodelling, and doing diddly-squat. Then along came the ‘kicking angel.’ This kicking angel happened to be an Internet Marketer. He was kinda impressed with our first product, and promised to help us market it to his list. “But here’s what you have to do first,” he said. “I’ll give you a week to set up everything. You’ll need to get a merchant account. And write your sales page. And set up an affiliate account. And we’ll start marketing your product in September. And your product will go to my list that’s well over 25,000 prospects.” You know what we did next, don’t you? Yup, in one week we did everything we’d been waffling about for well over a month. And then we went back to the Internet Marketer. And here’s what he said: “I’m a little busy doing promotions in September. How about October instead?” October turned to November. November turned to December. Santa came and Santa went. Our Internet Marketer was always too busy; too pre-occupied; too whatever. We felt betrayed, and angry… And what we didn’t realise, was that this Internet Marketer wasn’t a guardian angel at all. He was a kicking angel. He’d got us moving. And as summer (yes, we have summer in December) rolled around, we started selling our product. It was a measly 20-page booklet, but hey we were selling… And doing a jig around the room every time yet another product sold. Amazingly, our kicking angel never came back. Ever. And that’s when it dawned on us A kicking angel isn’t supposed to come back. That’s what they’re there for. To give you a kick. They kicked us into starting workshops . They kicked us into writing/creating a series of products. They even came along, and cajoled us into starting the Protege Program–a biggie for us at the time. There’s one who’s been kicking into starting up the Brain Audit Trainer program. And here’s the irony of it all… Kicking angels are classic ditchers. They promise to help us promote. They promise to buy into the product. They promise to join a workshop. They swear to be there to sign on the dotted line. But they never ever show up again. But in our desire to please these angels, we created products And services. And courses. And workshops. And our business grew. It took us a while to realise the role of the kicking angel That they weren’t our friendly neighbourhood volunteer. Not one of them even turned out to be a strategic alliance or customer. Their only job was to get us off our butts. So we could create stuff. And jig. Jig a lot. The kicking angel is not a guardian angel by a long shot. Their only job is to land that swiftie. And the funny thing is that they’ll keep at it, till you listen. If your bum is sore from getting all those swifties, it’s probably time. Time to listen to that kicking angel. Are you listening? Next Step: Three Disaster Stories (And How We Recovered and Soldiered On) http://www.psychotactics.com/three-disaster-stories/

The moment we sit down to write an article, we need to do a fair amount of research. Case studies, stories, they’re all needed to create a solid article. Yet that very research causes us to spend so much time on our article, that we’re exhausted. Is there a way to research without getting tired? In part two we explore the techniques I use to write extremely detailed articles. Let’s find out how to go about a strategy that works every single time. -------------- Stage 3: Never research when writing the article If you were to put all the energy drainers together and pick one of them, the biggest of them all would be research. You need research to prove your point, or to get examples, or even just to get the First Fifty Words going, in your article. The only time you should not be doing that research is right at the point you’re writing the article. I have to admit, I’ll still occasionally do some research when I’m writing the article I want to make a great start to the article, so I’ll go looking for a story. And the moment I do, I’m off into the big black hole called the Internet. What’s worse is that many hours later, I may not find the facts or story I need. And the article is still left undone. Which is why Evernote was invented? Now I’ve covered the concept of Evernote (or if you like, OneNote) before. And the idea is pretty simple. We all collect information, but can’t find the information at the exact time we need it. Well, that’s what Evernote is stunningly good at doing. No matter if you’re online or offline, Evernote can comb through all the information you’ve saved. It can even read your handwriting if you take a picture. And so, you don’t have to go hunting at the last minute. I was a cartoonist and cartoonists used to keep reference books Photography was too expensive a hobby when I was growing up, and so all our reference books were based on cuttings. Newspaper cuttings, magazine cuttings, etc. And when I started in the world of copywriting, again, all those case studies were stored in those Windows folders. But it was a pain to find anything in a matter of seconds. But as you probably know from past articles or podcasts, I store everything in Evernote. And I started storing hundreds of stories and data that I’d possibly need for future articles. I don’t even know what the notes are going to be useful for in the future I have information about fungus, elephants, Air BNB, The Invention of the Mouse, the Lemon Index—and hundreds of pieces of information that can be easily found in the future. As I write this piece, I am going to need some of that Air BNB information. I’m also going to need some Zappos information. And it’s all there, already in place. I’m not going to need to go online and waste time. In fact, since I was going to write that article sometime this week, I’ve already reviewed the material and marked out what’s important. See how much energy is being saved? Most writers spend enormous time in research. The way I go about it is to clip stuff the way I did when I was a cartoonist or copywriter. I clip in advance, store it in Evernote. Then when I need it, it’s already curated, underlined if needed and ready to use. Even so, there are times when I need information and can’t find it In such a scenario, I tend to use my own case study. Let’s say I wanted to write an article about “how to find the right problem” (which is what the Air BNB story is about). And I can’t find a story online, or I’m just not prepared. In such a situation, I pop over to 5000bc or on Facebook and ask others for their stories. Often the stories will come thick and fast, but more importantly, their story will lead you to remember a story of your own. When you’re stuck, use a case study from your own business or life You already know all the facts; you have the details. And a case study brings your business to life. If your case study is about success, clients love that story. If it’s about failure, they realise that you too are human. In fact, I will use a lot of stories from Psychotactics for that very reason. Instead of this random business sitting somewhere in cyberspace, Psychotactics becomes human. A good strategy would be to have a mix of both No one is saying you shouldn’t do your research. Nothing is quite as interesting as finding out how Barry Manilow’s drummer played a role in one of the hottest Internet companies today. It’s a super thrill to find out how the NY trains got rid of their graffiti. And a case study of how a company increased its sales by 33% or lost 47.5% of its clients is always going to be interesting. But then, so are case studies and stories from your life. So mix them up and your articles become far more engaging. Yet this article is all about energy Any research will suck up all the energy you have, so save the information in advance. Even if you’ve tried to use Evernote before and failed, give it another few tries. Listen to the podcast on Evernote and you’ll see why so many people struggle—and then fall head over heels with this software. Oh, and get yourself the premium version because you’ll want offline access too. That offline access means you’ll be able to browse through your case studies while at the cafe or that hut in the woods. And this brings us to the end of this series on “How I Write an Article.” I’ve got about 4 minutes before my timer goes off. Summary When you look at article writing, you possibly look at it as sitting down to write. Instead, the goal should be to maximise your energy so that your article doesn’t go up in flames. When I started writing articles, I didn’t realise the importance of energy. I’d want to get to the end point, and that was why I’d end up utterly drained after writing. Even as you’re reading this summary, you may not realise that it’s yet another day. That I wrote the topics on one day, the outline on another, the article on a third and the summary on a fourth. Why? Because by the time I finished writing the article yesterday, I needed some pasta arrabbiata, gluten and all. Besides, writing summaries drives me crazy. I would rather write two or three articles than a single summary. As you can probably figure out, I needed to be fresh. So here I am at 4:50 am, writing the summary before I bail out and do something else. I’m doing what needs the most energy, because if I don’t, well, there’s no pasta at this time of the day. So what did we cover? Topic 1: Putting space between activities We’ve already gone over this a fair bit, even here in the summary, but the main thing to consider is this. Think of your writing as a journey, not a dash to the next room. Plan it, and then roll it out day by day. First the topics, then the sub-topics, then the outline. And it’s only at this point that you should start writing the article. When you write, just write. If you write, edit, write, edit and write, you’ll spend more time editing than writing. And we know how that story ends, don’t we? The edit needs to be on another day, and this article you’re reading has followed that process too. Even this summary is unedited. It may look fine to you, but we all profess to be perfectionists, and so I’ll find a fair bit to edit. But the edit will come later; once I’m done with this summary, not before. Topic 2: Using a timer There’s a huge difference between a timer and a deadline. A deadline is something far off in the future, or maybe tomorrow morning. But a timer fixes the slots for each of the activities. So you have 10 minutes for your topics, then stop. Then it’s 30 minutes for the outline, then stop—and so on. The timer regulates every section of your article so that you start and stop. You may not be totally convinced about the timer and yet there have been dozens of clients who’ve been through the Article Writing Course. At first, they’re skeptical about the timer, but as the course continues they see it as energy saving. They understand the value of having that energy because they have lives to lead and businesses to run. Writing is an energy-intensive task. Without a timer, I was asking for trouble. Now I write to a timer and then I stop. Even now, as I was writing, I had a friend, Stefano, from Italy chatting with me on WhatsApp. And I realised that I was running out of time. So once I saw two movies and a few pictures of Stefano’s kids, I went back to writing. We all have to bow to the timer Gods because the distraction is so intense. Stefano is a great guy, but then so is my timer. Topic 3: Never research when writing the article Research is the most amazing part of an article. I watch Netflix, and there’s this chef that’s doing something amazing. I make a note of it. I read yesterday about this couple that were making a low-cost house, and they had a great demand for it. I made a note of it. Volcanoes, the giant daisy forests of the Galapagos Islands, how Air BNB made it—it’s all interesting. But I will not go hunting for all this information when I’m writing. All of this has to be found in advance and stored away like some digital packrat. Stored away in Evernote—or OneNote. And then when you need the information, you can find it not in minutes, but in seconds. You don’t need another cup of Starbucks; you need the premium version of Evernote. Start using it on your phone, on your computer, on your tablet. Store everything incessantly. That’s what I do. That’s how I have so many hundreds of stories, case studies, and facts at my disposal. So get Evernote and start using it like it should be used. Despite the fact that I write over 4000 words a week, writing is still ridiculously time-consuming. What I need, what we all need is energy on our side. Save energy and you’ll save time. In case you missed Part 1:  How I Write 4000-Word Articles Without Getting Exhausted http://www.psychotactics.com/write-articles-howto/ Next Up: How To Fight Envy (And Stay Motivated Instead): Episode 115 http://www.psychotactics.com/envy-stay-motivated/  

The biggest problem with article writing is the exhaustion factor It’s write, delete, write, delete and the endless cycle goes on. So how do you go about article writing? Can you really write articles and not get exhausted? In this series you get to see how I went from getting really frustrated, to writing 800 word articles and then 4000 word articles. What’s the secret to such an enormous output? And how do you do it without getting exhausted? ------------- In this episode Sean talks about Topic 1: Spacing out your article Topic 2: Is the timer an energy saver when writing articles? Topic 3: Why you should never research when writing the article Right click here and ‘save as’ to download this episode to your computer. ------------- When I was growing up in Mumbai, India, I thought pizza was sweet. No one I knew had ever eaten a pizza and all the references to pizza were from Archie Comics. Archie—and especially Jughead—always seemed to be eating a pizza. And for some reason, I associated pizza as a sort of candy, or sweet dish. Imagine my surprise when I ate pizza for the first time in my twenties. I sense a similar sense of surprise when I talk about how I write an article. Every time I talk about article writing, clients are usually taken aback. It’s almost as though they’re  experiencing a disconnect between what they perceived to be true, and the reality. You may or may not know that I turn out about 3000-4000 words of fresh content every week. I do all this writing in between cooking and painting and everything else. So how do I write an article? Is it really a writing gene? Well, it can’t be a gene because I struggled like everyone else. I’d take two working days to write an article,  back in 2000. Today I can complete an 800-word article in about 45 minutes. So what’s changed? Strangely it’s got not a lot to do with article writing itself, and a lot to with how I manage my energy. So what are we going to cover? Topic 1: Putting space between activities Topic 2: Using a timer Topic 3: Never research when writing the article Stage 1: Spacing out your article Here’s how I cook a meal. I get fresh vegetables and ingredients from Huckleberry—the organic grocery store up the road.Then I do nothing. Later that day, I’ll assemble the ingredients and then do a second bout of nothingness. Finally, when I’m ready to cook, several hours may have gone by. But cooking is quick, painless and the dish is incredibly tasty. What you’re reading about seems to be my method of cooking, but it’s not. It’s my method of conserving energy. To me, energy is what allows me to write so much. And the best way to expend energy is to do everything all together. The rookie writer will sit down, try to dream up the idea for the article, then try to write and get frustrated on a consistent basis. Instead, what you should do, is do as little as possible. So here’s how I go about my writing I’ll write down a topic, or if I’m, um, prolific, several topics. Then, before the idea slips away, I’ll write down three sub-topics. And in this article, the topic was about “How I Write” and the sub-topics were about: – Putting space between activities – Using a timer – Never research when writing the article Once that’s done I let my brain take a well-deserved rest It may seem like it’s important to keep the momentum going, but the best thing you can do when writing, is not to write anything at all. If you feel obliged to do so, maybe you can take those three topics and outline them. An outline will have a lot more detail because it’s the structure of the article and shows the flow. My outlines usually cover these main points. – What are we talking about? – Why is it so very important? – Other questions such as when/where etc? – Examples – Objections – Mistakes, if any – Summary – Close A week usually starts off with me writing one or many topics and sub-topics Then once I’ve let a day or two go by, I’ll write the outline. Another 24 hours will slide before I start to expand the outline. This part takes the most amount of time. If I write an 800-word article, it may take me about 45 minutes (it used to take me two days to do this part when I first started writing articles). And if I take on a 3000-word article it might take about 3-4 hours. But here’s the thing: I don’t sit down to write everything all at once. And you shouldn’t either. You should break up your writing into bits. There’s a very good reason for all this breaking up It’s called energy. Every step takes energy. When I’m cooking, (and believe me I love cooking), just getting the ingredients is a minor mission. Then the cutting, chopping—again, stuff I’ve come to love over the years—it’s all takes time. And anything that takes time also drains energy. But the moment I split up the activity and come back later, it seems like someone else has done the prep work. And all that’s left is to finish it off. Energy needs to be your biggest focus Time is what we focus on a lot, but hey, you have time; I have time; we all have time. We flop down on the sofa at 7 pm, and we’re not in la-la land until three, four, even five hours later. So we have time. We just don’t have the energy. Which is why breaking up your article into bits is what makes it manageable. Writing is an incredibly demanding skill, even for an accomplished writer, and it’s best to get back when you’re reasonably charged. But there’s more to it, and you know it When you put space between your topics and outlining, your brain gets a chance to mull over the ideas. While you sleep, your brain is doing its thing. It sorts out the bad ideas, keeps good ones, and when you get back to writing, nothing has changed. And yet something has. It doesn’t stop there. When I go for a walk, I’ll run the ideas past my wife And especially on days when I’m really confused, this seems to work well. Even if she’s not quite awake at 6 am, and she mostly isn’t, just voicing the ideas lets the ideas distill. At times, if Renuka doesn’t agree with me, she’ll snap right out of her slumber-walk and rattle out a list of objections. These objections force me to think, to refine the article. At this stage I’m still on the tightrope between article topics and outlining, and nowhere close to writing the article. Eventually I will have to tweak that outline, and it’s time to write. This article was written in parts as well I wrote the topics earlier in the week. I then wrote the sub-topics. Finally, today, Thursday, is when I’m sitting down to write it. I may fudge a bit and try to edit it as well once I’m done—but only when I’m done I realise that many newbies edit and write at the same time and in the process, they never get to the finish line. As you get better at writing, you realise that the deadline is all that really matters. And today, Thursday, my deadline is clearly to finish, not edit this article. If I do get to the end point, I’ll run it through Grammarly, edit and we’re ready to go. But some days I might add one more step. I’ll e-mail a client or a friend whose judgment I trust. And ask them to look over the article. So now I have to wait even longer. This break adds to the pause factor, and I mull over the ideas until the suggestions come bouncing back. When they do, there’s always some clarity that’s needed and some bits that need fixing. Which is slightly frustrating, but it almost always makes the article better. When you’re just starting out as a writer, you’re likely to be amazed at how quickly seasoned writers turn out a finished piece All my sob stories about how much time I used to take to write an article doesn’t wash well with you. Your goal is to write faster, instead of slaving over the article for hours, even days. You want to get to the finish line, and that’s the biggest problem. Instead of trying to write the entire piece, break it up. Just thinking of these stages might drive you crazy because you’re likely to be thinking: who has time to go through all these steps? And that’s the whole point of this section on spacing out your article You don’t have time and drinking that bottle of whatever is in your fridge isn’t going to give you energy. By spacing your article, you’re not using up more time at all. I use 10 minutes to write topics and sub-topics. Another 30-45 minutes goes into outlining. And finally, it’s another 45-60 minutes of writing, and I’m done. In all, even if you add editing time, an article takes about 2 hours back to back. And when I’m done, I’m not drained. I’m ready to take on another task and keep going with my day. To me, that’s the biggest joy of all. I feel a deep satisfaction when my article is complete. But I also know I have the energy to keep doing other work-related tasks. And that feeling is totally different from when I first started writing articles and was exhausted by the end of the article writing exercise. But that’s not the only pizza moment I had in my life. I ran into a second concept quite by chance. It sounds like a deadline, but it’s not a deadline at all. It’s called a timer. Stage 2: Using a timer Notice how you’re all excited when you get a new computer? It’s a blank slate; there’s practically nothing on the hard drive. And at least on the Mac, there’s a special section called “Downloads” Whenever you start to download something from the Internet, the file goes right into the Download folder. When I last checked a few minutes ago, there were 74 files there. In a month from now, there may be 85. And give or take a year and the folder will continue to accumulate junk that I never look at. In short, the more space I have in that folder, the more I’m likely to fill it with something. On the Article Writing Course, clients, tend to fill it with hours of writing The Article Writing Course at Psychotactics is like no other writing course I know of. Clients who join the live course, and this is the live course online, often have to write two about two articles a week. The first half of the week is spent on topics and sub-topics. Then it’s a day of outlining and finally it’s time to write. The writing stage is when they labour over their work for hours on end. Until 2015, clients would often take 3, even 4 hours to write an article. Then in 2016, I gave them a fixed amount of time The instructions were clear. Every assignment had a finite amount of time, and when the timer went off, they had to stop and submit their work. Even though the participants were given a fairly chunky bit of time, writing is not always easy. You have to write often enough so that the structure becomes second nature. Once that structure is in place, it’s relatively easier to complete the article in time. But at the start, most of the clients didn’t finish in time. It didn’t matter. They had to submit their work Once the timer went off, it was akin to an examination hall. You had to hand over your assignment. As you can imagine, this causes a fair level of frustration among the writers. They feel they need more time to complete their work; more time to edit it and perhaps polish it. And yet, it doesn’t matter. If you write to a timer, you are acutely aware that you have to finish before your deadline. As I’m writing this piece, I know that I have to finish about 1600-2000 words in the next hour and a half and then the timer goes off. The timer is an energy saver Let’s do it your way for a change. Let’s say you keep writing until the article is done. And let’s assume that journey from start to finish took you four hours. You’re now wasted for the rest of the day, aren’t you? You took on such a monumental task, but you’re completely drained and headed to the fridge to scoop up the remaining ice cream. But if you stopped in about 90 minutes, you’d be tired, but certainly not exhausted. You’d have to take a break, there’s no doubt about it, but you’re ready to go after a while. Understanding how to manage your energy is a big deal in life This article is about writing, but without a timer, your cake gets burnt, food has to be tossed, and articles are just about as inedible. The reason why most writers keep going for hours on end is because they believe they’re improving their article. But I can tell you from years of experience, and having read close to a few thousand articles on the Article Writing Course itself. Time doesn’t make your article better. If you spend 50% more time on your article, it doesn’t get 50% better. Instead if you break away, you do yourself a big favour I had to learn this lesson because I didn’t realise the value of a timer. I just looked at the deadline and kept working towards it. And the deadline is a mirage. The only thing that counts is a timer. When the timer goes off, you’re done. On the Article Writing Course, clients don’t get a chance to keep tweaking their articles. Instead, they just get better at writing, so that by the time they’re done with the course, they’re able to write at close to, or at the amount of time allocated. In your world, you may still need to meet that article deadline. Even so, let your article lie unfinished for today. Tomorrow, set yourself another timer Then come back, finish the article, give it that spit and polish and you’re done for this round. People often ask me how I get so much writing done in a week. The answer is not simple because it involves so many factors, but one of the biggest weapons in my armoury is the timer. And just to be sure that I don’t get distracted, I put on a Facebook and Gmail block. I can’t surf the Internet, can’t do anything but write. Get a timer It’s hard to believe a timer can change your writing life, but it will. You will learn to write faster because your timer demands it. And in doing so, your quality will improve. You’ll have fewer articles in the article graveyard. You hear the bing, and you get up. Your work is done for the day. Which takes us to the third part: No research when writing the article. Click here to read part 2 of this series: How To Write Extremely Detailed Articles Without Getting Exhausted http://www.psychotactics.com/article-writing-research/