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Building an indie business in the center of venture capital. I am Alex Edmonds. Some people on the internet know me as supremerumham, and this is the building and the business podcast. Okay. Um, so today, um, so say, I want to discuss learning to write faster. So, I have been trying to, or experimenting with like, riding faster, meaning like, going from outline to full on article. quicker than I usually do. It takes me about a week, maybe a little more depending on topic. So I'm going to talk about what I think it comes down to. How to make it easier for like, yeah, how to make it easier for me to write quicker. Um, so and some other things. Let's just say that for now. Okay. So let's get into it. I think I think it comes down to notes, right? Just like taking notes on everything, and every thought that you have not every thought, but like, anything you think you might want to share. So like, right now, I'm thinking about writing an article on candy, and how candy companies make money, let's just say, and so everything I encounter about candy, or every thought I have about candy, I should be taking notes on right. And so that way, when I'm ready to write the article, I can refer to all my notes, and just like, take my notes, copy and paste into a document, and then write the article out, right. And I think that's how most writers You know, that's how they come up with blog posts, they take their notes, and they, they just take take the notes, and they put it in a blog post, and then that's that, I that must help. That must be how they make things faster, or they have like a structure that they're looking for, or not that that they have. And that they just have notes in that structure for each topic. So like when they're looking for, let's say, the writing about candy or food or whatever. So they're looking at the finances of candy. They know what they need. They have like, Oh, this is a revenue, this is the profit. This is the expenses. And they just look for those things. And every time they have all those things, that's how they turn it into an article. Right? Yeah. And so that's ideas come to you, when you least expect it. I have ideas all the time when I'm eating lunch, right. So what I think I have to do is I have to start like I'm being prepared to like, take down notes at any time. So how would I do that? I think I would do that by just making it as easy as possible to at any time. So like I have my paper notes or like a notepad that with the pen right on top of it so that way anytime I could write anything down, um, I have my note taking app I use simple note, you guys know this if you have been listening to a podcast for a while. I like simple note because it's simple, right? I can just take my notes down. And that's it. There's voice memos, which I constantly use all the time. And there's pictures, screen screenshots. And so that way, anytime I see something interesting online or on Twitter, wherever I'm, I can just screenshot it and I put it in my my picture notebook. Sounds weird to say. My problem with this note taking method is I have a different app for each kind of note that I'm taking. I have one for voice notes. I have simple note that doesn't take voice notes. And then I have one more screenshot stuff and put it in that notebook and the night title it. So that's an issue right there. But uh, I've been getting better at using the voice function on my keyboard on my phone so that way instead of taking voice notes I'm I'm talking Simple note and simple note was taking down my words. And that just it subtracts a barrier for me to take notes. Right. And I think another besides note taking, I think another way for me to write faster is to have a workflow that as soon as are just that I have to take my writing And that way I don't have to think about, like the writing process. I I have my note taking process, and I have my writing process. And I don't have to think about it. It's just automatic 1234 boom. And so, if you remember, or if you don't remember, or if you're new to the podcast, my writing process is I do the outline. Then I do speech text, I say, everything that's in the outline. And that helps me to that helps me flow. My thoughts and how it sounds to the writer or the reader and the writer. I know what it sounds like to the writer. Right? Um, yes, so I know how it sounds to, to the reader. Right. And then I edit it, Grammarly Hemingway, and then I listen to it. And that way, I know how it sounds to me when I'm saying it. And then by listening to it, I know how it sounds to a reader when they're reading it themselves. And that really helps me not only catch small errors, but uh, it comforts me, because I know how it sounds. And that way, I know that it doesn't sound you know, weird, like, it's correct, grammatically. And from idea to idea it flows right? It's not out of nowhere. I'm not talking about like baseball and then talking about like candy. It's just 1234 boom, it's not 4213 Yeah, so that comfort to me. Um, right now, for the podcast, I am able to outline an episode and an hour go from zero to one and one hour. less, less less than one hour actually, even. So the I remember the the ads like Bill Burr podcast episode, I streamed it and I went from nothing to outline in under an hour. Right That was cool. But the problem with that is, I was able to do that because I decided that I was going to do it in one hour. Right, so I didn't take notes on it, but I was constantly thinking about it. Like, all day, every day when I was at work, just thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it, and so that's why I was able to do that in one hour. Um, the problem with that is I should have just been Taking notes on it. And just slowly building that up for weeks because I probably missed out on some great ideas that I had when I wasn't taking notes on it. That I could have added to the episode and provided more value. So yeah, that was an error on my part. Um, so yeah, that's why I think taking notes is an easy way easier way to go from zero to one and I'm not even saying an hour. I just want to go From like zero to one and a day, right? I think another part of this is Research, right? So right now I'm ringing the bell finance. I can't go from zero to one to one with without doing research without doing research. Unless my sad topic is that topic it already in my brain, which I've already written about all that stuff. So, um, what I need to do is I need to find some solid sources that I new article. And that way, I'm not starting from scratch, this is what I'm talking about a process. So I have a process for outlining of a process for writing it. Now I need the middle thing I need to have a process for researching. And that way, you know, I can just go Um, so one thing I know is a good source is Google Scholar, which is A little different from like Google search, because it provides me with like academic. I'm writing and the reason why I want to do I want to do like the academic writing more is because it's a little bit older. And so that way I can piece together like this is how it was in the set out how adding new stuff to the content. I'm not just copying content. And I don't want to use, like the top publications for the Google search, because that's copying, right. I don't want to do that. And then if people If I just take what's on Google already, that's not original. And if I just did that, then there would be no reason for my content. They could just read the top publication on Google Right. Yeah. So another thing I need to do is I need to learn, or I need to keep getting better at learning to search on Google properly. So like learning what phrases are like how to phrase something to get the results I need. And then yeah, another thing for research is I need to have someone in mind to arm interview and who I can, who, who in my network, I can interview for the topic that I want to research and read about. So like, I need to know, who can I talk to about candy finance, right? And so that way I can say, Hey, can I interview you about candy finance and that would help me with my research. See, um, now I have I have the process down. But there's just the things I've been thinking about since I started to have this idea in my brain. This all takes time like for me to take notes and how those notes ready? It's gonna take me a couple days or weeks I can go from zero to article and day one after research everything. Yeah, for personal stuff though. I can go from zero to article and a day because that stuff is already in my brain Like I can take, like the the ads for Bill Burr episode, I could have written an article on that if I wanted to, and have the podcast episode, all in the same day. But for something I need to research that's a little more in the episode and in the blog post, right? Um, basically, what I want is the equivalent of going up on stage with a two word phrase, and then working out the stuff on the stage, which is kind of like the podcast episode. But, uh, I need to do more research for the podcast episode. Yeah. Um, and the problem is with going from zero to one all in one day, or like a shorter amount of time, less than a week is I don't want to rush and then give people wrong information, because they might act on that information. And that might hurt them if they have the wrong information. Right. So yeah, I don't know. This is just something I'm thinking about. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it. If you have any feedback, let me know. Thank you for listening. Have a nice day. Bye