Tips

The 9 Best Writing Tips I Learned From a 7 Day Writing Challenge With the Worlds Top Blogging Expert

The 9 Best Writing Tips I Learned From a 7 Day Writing Challenge With the Worlds Top Blogging Expert

When Medium curators distributed my article into the Productivity category, and when a publication called The Startup distributed that same article to over 500k subscribers, it reinforced my belief that Jon Morrow is the worlds top blogging expert.

If you don't know of Jon Morrow, he's the founder and chief writer on SmartBlogger.com, and he's wildly successful.

I read pretty much anything Jon Morrow writes, and buy pretty much anything he has to sell. Jon has proven to me, through countless blogs and paid courses, that he's the real deal.

His writing is spot on, his advice is practical and immediately useful, and he seems to know every pain point a writer like me faces in running a writing-based business.

So when he offered his Write a Kick-Ass Blog Post writing challenge in which he and his staff of pro bloggers would walk challengers through writing an article in one week for—get this—$10, purchasing it was a no-brainer.

Over 600 others thought the same.

We set out on a journey to write a list-post from scratch in 7 days. Every step of the way—from idea to outline to introduction to content to closing—Jon and his team read our work and gave us invaluable feedback.

Here are some of the best things I learned.

41 Ways to Get Home Early Every Day This Week

The Night Before

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1. Get 7 hours of sleep

2. Lay out daily clothes in advance

3. Block calendar for important work

4. Schedule commute time

5. Schedule breaks

6. Plan to deal with time obstacles

7. Schedule administrivia

In The Morning

8. Exercise

9. Eat healthy food that energizes you

10. Tell everyone when you plan to leave

11. When work begins, begin work (don’t get distracted)

For Meetings

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12. Squeeze meetings together

13. Focus (or leave) meetings that aren’t productive

14. Reschedule meetings that start late

15. Hold stand up meetings

16. Decline meetings where you can’t contribute

17. Add buffer between meetings and tasks

Managing Tasks

18. Schedule important tasks

19. Prioritize urgent tasks

20. Delegate unimportant tasks

21. Delete the rest of your tasks

22. Limit emailing to 3x per day

23. Automate repetitive tasks with apps like IFTTT

24. Bundle similar tasks together

25. Set a timer for your tasks

During Work

26. Begin with the end in mind

27. Minimize distractions

28. Stick to your schedule

29. Delegate

30. Work on what matters

31. Focus with music

32. Work intensely

33. Take breaks often

34. Work when everyone else isn’t

Administrivia

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35. Call instead of email

36. Send shorter emails… get to the point

37. Only read emails where you are in the to: line

Before Heading Home

38. Block time before you leave to clean up your day

39. Reduce and remove clutter in your workspace

Don’t Forget…

40. Add some greenery to your workspace (scientifically proven to increase productivity)

41. Sit, stand, walk, talk, act confidently


About the Author

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Michael Mehlberg

HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE

I help high-achieving entrepreneurs organize their brain and schedule so they can organize their life and business.

Subscribe to my free, weekly newsletter on personal excellence and business mastery that one client called “The Owners Manual to an Awesome Life.”

How To Break a Funk and Refocus on What's Important

How To Break a Funk and Refocus on What's Important

Yesterday, I was high on a big fat doobie of accomplishment, a productivity monster crushing every activity with aplomb. Today I woke up to a sick wife and daughter, a migraine of my own, and two sons who had to finish last-minute school projects that rivaled NASAs space shuttle development program in size and scope.

I felt defeated, exhausted, overwhelmed, and wishing for my day back.

When this happens, you can recover in three ways:

3 Science-Backed Daily Habits for a Life of Happiness and Success

3 Science-Backed Daily Habits for a Life of Happiness and Success

Success and happiness are built on layers of science.

Let me explain.

Habit #1 | The Common Element to Irritability and Worthlessness (The Opposite of Happiness and Success)

Nick chucked his controller into the Nintendo, hard.

It bounced off the front plastic and flew to the floor, but he wasn't done. He picked it up in a fit of rage and threw it again, and again, and again. With every throw, his face grew hotter until he looked like a ripe cherry about to pop in the hot sun. He threw that controller over and over with all his might, cracking the plastic until the Nintendo relented and shut down (for good) when he finally destroyed the on/off switch.

3 Immediate Mindset Changes to Drastically Improve Your Life

3 Immediate Mindset Changes to Drastically Improve Your Life

I can attest from first-hand experience that striking out sucks.

It doesn't matter how you do it.

Swinging under a ball for that third strike feels like opening a drain to let all the potential flow out of your body. No base hit. No home run. No chance to be the hero in front of an audience of cheering fans.

10 Ways to Massively (and Immediately) Improve Your Life

10 Ways to Massively (and Immediately) Improve Your Life

Life hacks. Tactics. Pro tips for stealing small, incremental improvements to your life...

Make your bed.

Organize your desk.

Drink eight glasses of water a day.

Who. Fucking. Cares?

Seriously, are these truly going to make your life better? Are you going to look back from your death bed and say, "you know, I wish I would have drunk so much goddamn water that I needed to piss 47 times every day?"

30 Days of Daily Planning for a Better Life

30 Days of Daily Planning for a Better Life

The last place I ever wanted to be was on a twin-engine propeller plane in an ice storm.

Yet there I was, sitting in seat 2b, listening to the engines labor to keep 20 tons of metal and humanity afloat. Unlike the constant drone of a jet engine, this prop plane had a chant—a repetitive roar intermingled with a gnarly growl—like a lion voicing his displeasure as he tumbled around in an industrial dryer.

How to Get the Most Out of Business Travel

How to Get the Most Out of Business Travel

If you do any amount of business travel, you'll want to listen to this podcast. 

With nearly a million flight miles between the two of us, we uncover travel tips and tricks (and hilarious stories) that could only come from experience. 

In it, we discuss how to get the most out of business travel, how to maximize the value of your time, tips and hacks to make travel more enjoyable, and what to do when things go wrong.