If you blog consistently (e.g.: write at least once per week), you will

1) organise your thoughts;

2) get new, creative ideas about the subject you write about; and

3) learn to communicate better.

Most importantly, writing helps you organise your thoughts.

This is a HUGE deal. Before I started blogging, I didn’t realize how my thoughts were sporadic blimps with no place to go.

After I started blogging, I learned that writing things down is the key to organising your thoughts. I’m not just talking about organisation in the traditional sense of compartmentalising, but I’m actually talking about bringing clarity to your thoughts.

Writing things down and blogging is a gateway for you to organise your thoughts in a way that will bring you clarity that you cannot get otherwise.

The following are some of my thoughts on blogging:

#1: Keep it short

In today’s time we call the information age, people are bombarded with hundreds of links with catchy titles every day, I think it is especially important to convey your message in as few words as possible.

Try keep your blog articles short. On occasion, I would write a long post, but usually my posts are really short. You can go through most of them in under a minute.

#2: Blog once a day

If you want to we a good writer, or a good blogger, the one thing that  have to do is to write a lot.

If you want to be a writer, you have to write everyday, and if you want to be a blogger, you have to blog regularly. Daily, if you can, but, at least, regularly if you can’t. 

I blog at least once a day, everyday. Each blog post is mostly about entrepreneurship, productivity or creativity and most important: human connection.

Blogging is addictive, writing is addictive.

I write once a day…but within that day, I could write one blog post or fifteen and then queue them up . The queuing allows me to is replace posts I don’t love with the ones I love.

People ask me all the time if I ever run out of ideas to write about. No. The answer is no. I never ever run out of ideas to write about.

The thing about blogging is, the more you do it, the more you learn and grow, and the more creative ideas you have.

So, if you want to grow in your space (whether hobby or career), then starting a blog will help you have better ideas.

Blogging promotes growth and learning, and the ideas never stop coming.

#3: Don’t watch TV

I don’t watch a TV, it’s a conscious decision I made a while ago. Yes I watch news or sport, but I don’t do binge TV watching like watching Series after Series, season after season.

I have no clue what Games of Throne is about. I have some idea what the Fixer is about or Suits but I don’t watch TV religiously.

By not watching TV, I save about 4 hours on average everyday and I use this time to write.

#4: Write like you talk

Often people ask me if I don’t get writer’s block, you don’t wake up and you can’t talk, you wake up, and talk effortlessly, that’s how I write, I write like I talk.

Just convert an interesting conversation you had with someone yesterday into text and that’s your blog article.

This is important go me because some creative people say they can only write when the muse strikes. But nobody needs an inspiration to talk, so you won’t have to wait for the muse to strike to write like you talk.

If you wake up and you can’t talk, then go see a doctor.

Writing like you talk will make your copy conversational and, as long as you can come up with thoughts worth sharing, not difficult to write. You just write down what is on your mind.

In the movie Finding Forrester, William Forrester (player by Sean Connery) mentors the young Jamal Wallace (played by Rob Brown) about writing and he says:

“No thinking – that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is… to write, not to think!”

The more you write, the better writer you become.

#6: Notice things

Pays attention and notice things. 

For instance, if I see something that doesn’t make sense to me or I don’t understand… I will try to figure it out. That may turn into an insight that may land on my blog.

The same applies to you. If you are going about your workday and come across a challenging situation…try to figure it out.

If you don’t have time to do it right at that moment, then jot the thought down and come back to it. You will know that you need to definitely return to the idea if you do nothing with it and it sticks with you for days.

I write about things I experience daily in my environment. When my daughter was hospitalised, I wrote about interesting things at hospitals. When I travel, I write about some strange things I see at hotels, at airports. I spend most of my time with entrepreneurs, so I write mostly about entrepreneurship, ideas, innovation etc.

#7: Make blog posts, not money

I don’t blog to make money and I’m not trying to monetise my blog.

I’m okay if it monetises itself, say through speaking fees or consulting services, but I believes that bloggers should truly blog for the love of it and not the money.

#8: Establish what motivates you to get out of bed

If the reason you are blogging is to generate a full-time income, then you don’t have a passion… you have a job.

So you have to ask yourself, “What makes me get out of bed in the morning? What am I passionate about?”

You have to decide what you are passionate about. And the other question you have to ask yourself is: “How hard are you willing to push?”

Here is the thing about becoming the best at something…you need to make it small.

Focus on the area you are passionate about.

If you want to become the world’s best entrepreneur, then you need to pick an industry that you can master, like Henry Ford did with cars.

He didn’t say he wanted to be the best in transportation, he said he wanted to be the best in cars.

And that is exactly what he did. The same applies to blogging.

Find a niche, not a nation.

#9: Blog for yourself

I write because it is the only way to bring the voices in my head into harmony.

Even if no one reads your blog, it is a good idea for you to blog because it will make you better at whatever it is you are blogging about.

Blogging is writing down your ideas and thoughts in an organised, consistent system, and posting it online.