How to be a Great Blogger

Notes for myself

Disclaimer

You should take all of this advice with a large spoonful of salt because I’ve had no success as a blogger. This is a collection of notes for myself that I thought would be helpful to release publicly. I’ve compiled these notes from analyzing people I think are excellent at coming up with new ideas and writing pieces that resonate and some observations that I’ve made through experimentation.

Also, although I have experimented with all of this advice myself, a little time surfing through the links I provide here should show that I highly respect Andy Matuschak and his views have shaped my thoughts about thoughts (haha) significantly.

Write Things that People Want to Read

It’s common sense that the only way to have blogging success is to create content that people want to read. But this is hard, and there isn’t much helpful advice on generating good ideas. I tried my best to write the most unique stuff possible, but eventually, it became too exhausting and I defaulted to writing like everyone else (almost everything before Jan 2024 is clickbaity rubbish).

Recently, while exploring tools for thought, I’ve been thinking about ways to develop virtuosity as a thinker (I strongly urge exploring this link if you want to become a better thinker), and I’ve been spending increasingly more effort designing a system that facilitates better thinking.

I’ve come to the realization that it’s important to put serious thought into developing systems that can help you take knowledge work seriously. I’m not saying that you won’t get there without these systems, but it’s certainly the most efficient and reliable way I’ve seen of achieving success as a knowledge worker.

Systems That Help You Think

Notetaking

Please, please, please try using evergreen notes. I regret every day I knew about their existence but refused to write them. Browsing through that link can help you both understand the theoretical underpinnings of taking good evergreen notes and develop a strong intuition for what they look like in action.

I highly urge you to check out that link, but in short, taking evergreen eotes helps you develop a library of your ideas as they develop from what you consume. Most notetakers stop at simply storing what they consume. To develop new insights, you need to go further and use a notetaking system that can transform the way you think (evergreen notes are the best way I’ve seen of doing that).

When you’re using this notetaking system, take notes on basically anything. From fleeting insights to random thoughts to interesting ideas. As you do this, you will train your brain to notice good ideas when they appear and to write them down instantly. Don’t worry about whether or not your ideas are good. I think that over time, they’ll become good. This article by Julian Shapiro develops an argument in favor of the “creativity faucet” that feels intuitively correct.

Structure your notetaking so that it’s geared in a way that leads to better thinking for you. The ideal notetaking system is one where (after a certain point) you’re constantly pushing the frontiers of your knowledge on various topics, and ideas are constantly linking together. Eventually, it becomes something like a rough map of your brain. Often while writing one note, you’ll notice other holes in the map, and start to fill those in. This leads to re-discovering buried ideas constantly and paying more attention to new ones. I know this sounds too good to be true, but I think I’ve reached this point (and in just a few weeks too!).

Memory Systems

An important way to enhance this process is by using memory systems like Anki. Most people use memory systems for things like learning languages or studying for school, but it’s also valuable for remembering the meat of the best information you consume (here’s my post about memory systems if you want to learn how and why you should use them).

Having some of the best knowledge floating around in your head is a multiplier on the effectiveness of the evergreen notes system. I have no evidence to support this, but I strongly believe that memorizing knowledge makes it easier to make connections while writing evergreen notes.

Reading

Note: I’m not completely sure about this, as I also find the idea that lots of shallow consumption can lead to serendipitous idea formation pretty compelling. I prefer the experience of deep reading more, so that’s a major reason that I’ve taken its side here. Another major reason is that I intuitively believe that deep reading supports evergreen notes better than shallow reading.

Take reading seriously, and consume the highest quality content that you can find as deeply as possible. Make an informed decision about how much variation you want in the authors and topics you read from based on the topic of your blog (I would always recommend a bias towards greater variation because it’s insane how many random connections you find while taking evergreen notes).

Systematize your reading as much as possible by creating a reading inbox so that it doesn’t just descend to something you do when bored or mentally fatigued.

Reading a few things deeply per day is (in my experience) far better than consuming a lot of content rapidly. Consume thoughtfully, and add ideas/criticisms while you take notes. Being able to expand on existing ideas is (in my opinion) the fundamental skill that will mark your success as a blogger and thinker.

More on Thinking

If you use evergreen notes correctly, I can almost guarantee that you’ll be able to have more creative ideas. It helps even more to intentionally use mental models like first principles to come up with unique ideas that people will want to read. Eventually, you want to become adept at developing contrarian ideas.

This will require spending uncomfortable amounts of time questioning everything, but the payouts are potentially immense. Most of your contrarian ideas are going to be wrong, but only a few have to be right for you to be a game changer.

Writing

Before you start posting, I would recommend deeply internalizing a lot of the ideas from Julian Shapiro’s excellent guide, and following his checklist religiously until you can slowly shape the process he recommends to work best for you. I won’t write anything more about writing because the guide is genuinely that good.

More on Systems

As I said before, it’s important to systematize the entire process. Some of the biggest attractions of being a content creator are the various freedoms, but no structure at all can actually end up being restricting.

Think about questions like:

• How much time will you spend reading and consuming?
• How much time will you spend creating?
• How will you receive feedback on what you write?
• How much time do you want to spend on each post?
• How much time do you want to spend notetaking?
• What’s your process for reviewing all of your systems overall and making consistent improvements?

I can’t tell you the answers to questions whether or not you should release often and not be a perfectionist, or obsess more over your writing craft. I can’t tell you whether you should read and consume more or less, because the advice that’s true for some is wrong for others. What I can tell you to do is put systems in place (daily journaling and weekly reviews are probably good starting points) that can help you make improvements constantly. Try your best to focus on making 1% improvements every day.

Summary

1. Create an efficient system.

2. Constantly refine the system.

3. Do good reading.

4. Do good notetaking.

5. Put some upfront effort into developing writing skills.

6. Iteratively improve your writing over time.

The most important thing to remember, though, is to adopt a craftsman mindset (read So Good They Can’t Ignore You). Pursue virtuosity in your craft like a basketball player would pursue virtuosity in their craft. Most knowledge workers aren’t doing this, so those who do can get ahead fairly quickly (I think).

Originally published at https://vihaansondhi.substack.com.