Are you committing these 8 Writing Wastes? (The 8th Writing Waste is a killer)

The 7 Writing Wastes™ + The 8th Cardinal Writing Waste™

In 1993, I flew up to our factory in Glenrothes, Scotland. It was only the second time I’d been on an aeroplane, and to say I was excited was an understatement, I was hopping from bum cheek to bum cheek with happiness. The flight took less than an hour, and I enjoyed every minute. I was on a factory visit to see the amazing way Apricot Computers could lose more money with every personal computer it sold. I had been given the tomb, Juran’s Quality Control Handbook – 4th Edition, the week before and told to read up in advance as engineering (my arrogant department) were sure the factory was crap and we needed to show them what to do and how to get them working more efficiently.

There were about 1,774 pages of closely typed unfathomable script in this handy, 3 kilo handbook. This was before the Intercloud was really useful for normal people (and five years before Google!), so I couldn’t swot up by skimming someone else’s overview. So I did the next best thing, I remembered the chapter headings, and slotted in a, “Do you think we should do a root cause analysis?” at the first opportunity.

Whilst I bluffed my way through that first encounter with quality control, lean manufacturing, Kaizen[1] and guys with accents I couldn’t understand (Scottish!), some of what I skimmed stuck. Being an engineer by discipline I’ve always been interested in the methods and structured ways of deconstructing problems. I apply that engineering methodology to the process of writing, the mechanics of constructing books, ways to write more, faster and better. Of course there’s an art involved, but let’s just focus on some mechanics for this article…

In the first book I wrote (The Gorillas Want Bananas, with my brother Joe, in 2003) we had a section about the 7 marketing wastes – this idea was unceremoniously ripped off from (oops, I mean modelled on) the original seven wastes (Muda) developed by Taiichi Ohno, the Chief Engineer at Toyota, as part of the Toyota Production System (TPS) [2]. The original TPS seven wastes were: Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Overprocessing and Defects.

Now, I’ve ripped them off again, (oops, re-modelled them) for the writing process. I’ve changed them around a bit, made some stuff up, and included the 8th cardinal writing waste (this one’s a doozy!).

The 7 Writing Wastes™

Waste is anything you do that doesn’t serve a good purpose. Wastes are the unproductive practices that trick you into thinking you’re making progress, when really you’re making motion. As an expert, entrepreneur, business owner or writer, you may be making these avoidable writing wastes.

For this article I’m focusing on writing a non-fiction business book. You can apply the wastes to all writing (and lots of stuff you do in business).

1. Not enough focus

This one catches me out. You have too many interests, too many different clients you could serve, too many connecting ideas. You’re always thinking of new stuff. You’ve done your IKIGAI[3] and you have at least seventeen “reasons for being.” So you write for all of them. A bit here, a bit there. Then you flit to a different niche, a different target market. You write a bit over there too. You lovely, flittery butterfly, popping from thought to thought, market to market, never actually fully serving anyone. Your thoughts are in control of your activity. In fact you’re probably over-thinking everything!

Read more about not having enough focus…

Solution: Pick one niche, dominate it, automate it, move on. Stop (for now).

2. Too many ideas (writing in progress)

This waste is very closely aligned with waste #1. You are so prolific with ideas that you create a new book document every day. You have scraps of paper, open notebooks, post its, voice notes – hundreds of them. You probably end up writing a lot. It all sits on your computer. You never finish an idea, an article nor book. You write in isolation and never get feedback, because you never ship. No one gets to read what you’ve written.

Read more about having too much writing in progress…

Solution: Focus on one book (or article) for now. You can write more books later. Stop starting, start stopping.

3. Messing about with apps, tools, systems

You know you’ve done it – tried out all the writing apps, downloaded the trials of Scrivener and Evernote and BlahdeBlah. And you’ve convinced yourself that you’re in motion to write your book. You just need to find the right system, tool and app. So you download a few more, try them out, waste your time… give up for a few weeks and get on with some “real work”. Then you start the search for the perfect app (that will do the writing for you) all over again.

Read more about messing about!

Solution: The tools you have available to you right now are good enough. Pick up the pen and paper, and write. Open the Word document and type. Switch on the voice recorder on your phone and talk. Stop consuming, start creating.

4. Waiting for the right time, permission or inspiration

You will never have enough time to write a book. I promise you. Waiting until you have the time to write means you won’t write. Waiting for permission from your peers, colleagues, mom, other half is a waste. You don’t need anyone’s permission. You will never be ‘struck by inspiration and suddenly get in the flow.’ That’s not how it works.

Read more about waiting to write…

Solution: Make a decision that writing your book is the right solution for your business goals. Start now!

5. Complexifying simplicity

It all seems just too much. You’re feeling overwhelmed by the things you need to learn, understand, write, do. Every day someone comes out with a new book writing method, a better way of gaining followers, a different method of creating podcasts. What should you do? Everything? Nothing? Just when you think you’re starting to understand it all gets really complex again.

Read more about complexifying simplicity

Solution: There are a few things, that when done well, will have the most impact. Simplify complexity.

6. Perfecting procrastination

Re-reading your first paragraph, first chapter, working it over again and again? Spending too long on perfecting the chapter titles, the font used for the headings, the colour of the final bullets on the back cover? You know you’re overdoing it, and at the same time driving yourself and everyone else mad. This is probably a sign of fear, imposter syndrome, or OCD – what do I know, I’m a writer not a psychiatrist.  I do know perfecting procrastination leads to madness, watch this video to see my favourite ‘psychiatrist’, then take his advice: https://youtu.be/Ow0lr63y4Mw

After you’ve watched that video, read more about procrastinating, so you can work out how to just stop it!

Solution: Just. Stop. It!

7. Under-utilizing expert skills

Believing that you can do this alone without calling upon the wealth of advice, learning and skills available to you, which leads to you struggling, fretting, and basically screwing it up. You hope you can save money in the long run. You may, but you won’t save time. You may never even finish!

Find out why under-utilizing expert skills is killing your plans.

Solution: You don’t have to know everything. You don’t have to do everything yourself. Find people who have done this before. Buy their courses, get mentorship, use their coaching services. Stop saving, start investing.

The 8th Cardinal Writing Waste™

This final waste is the worst of all, and is most likely a cause of the previous wastes. If you fix this one, you get to the root cause of your writing waste!

8. Writing the wrong book

If you don’t know your reader, their pains, their desire for movement from where they are now to where they need to be, then you can’t write the right book. When you write the wrong book you waste your time and theirs. Your book will disappear into the sea of unread, (or perhaps unfinished), ego trips that litter the virtual shelves of Amazon. When you are writing the wrong book you lose confidence in your ability, you perfect procrastination, wait for permission and inspiration, whilst consuming other people’s work and your life.

My cardinal writer’s rule: first know the reader, then write the book. This rule applies for whatever you are writing – a blog post, an article, a speech, a book, a thesis. You are writing for a reader, not you!

Solution: Stop writing right now. Take the time to understand your reader: capture their thoughts and yours. Work out how you can help them fulfill their reason for being: organise your ideas. Test your brilliant book idea: ask them. Write easily without waste, edit, produce and ship a book that will make a difference to their life and yours. Stop: Think. Check. Write. Ship.

There you go, easy. Lots of stopping. A bit of thinking. And great writing, for the right reader.

In the next articles I’ll be going deeper into each of the wastes and showing you how you can spot them, reduce their impact and use your natural wastey-ness to your advantage.

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PS: I was only at the factory in Scotland for a day, we flew back that same evening (two flights in one day, I was a very happy girl). It’s clear that we (the arrogant engineers) took quality control very seriously. My day wasn’t quite over, that evening I enjoyed a trip in a police car around all of Birmingham airport car parking spaces. I had been so excited at 7am that morning I had completely forgotten where I’d parked my car.

References

[1] Kaizen – Sino-Japanese word for “improvement”, refers to activities that continuously improve all functions and activities – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

[2] TPS – Toyota Production System – https://theleanway.net/The-8-Wastes-of-Lean

[3] Ikigai – Find your reason for being – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai

Writing Waste 1. Not enough focus

An overview of The 8 Writing Wastes can be found here: Are you committing these 8 Writing Wastes? (The 8th Writing Waste is a killer)

Writing Waste 1: Not enough focus – A million little pieces (of sh!t)…

I opened the Word Document, scrolled to the end and started furiously writing.

An hour later, 2,000 un-edited words had spilled out – about horse training. I had woken up with an idea for an article, perhaps even a book, about natural horse training methods using hula hoops.

The problem was I wasn’t an expert on horse training, people didn’t contact me and ask me to help them with their horse behaviour problems, I didn’t sell anything to do with horses, I had no horse training course, didn’t do livery, nothing, zilch, just a big load of horse poo. That didn’t stop me. I then wrote an amusing article about HIIT (high intensity interval training) I called it SHIIT and based it on the optimum way of collecting horse shit and giving yourself a really great, all body workout, quickly.

Most mornings I wake up with an idea for an article: some mornings it actually has some connection to my day job – helping people write and get published!

Lack of focus catches me out regularly – it probably catches you too and leads to waste (or horse sh!t articles).

If you’re like me, you probably have too many interests, too many different clients you could serve, too many connecting ideas. Lack of focus for an expert (thought leader, consultant, coach, public speaker, etc.) means your audience doesn’t know who you are, what you can do for them, nor why they should contact you. You never fully serve a client or reader group. Lack of focus for an expert who wants to write (articles, blog posts, books, speeches) leads to paralysis or a million little pieces of unfinished content that sit on your computer staring back at you, accusingly!

Your smart, polymathic mind paralyses you in over-thinking.

Writing waste 1: Not enough focus because your thoughts are in control of your activity.

In fact you’re probably over-thinking everything!

Lack of focus in writing (and business) can come from a number of areas:

• Reading too much*: over-consumption of other people’s ideas can cause too many of your own as you make connections, links, jumps and flit around.
• Wide interest base: whilst being interested in broad areas makes you a great dinner party guest, when it comes to writing it means you probably have digit diarrhoea.
• You serve ‘anyone who needs your help’: when you don’t intimately know your audience you don’t deeply understand their needs. You cannot write for everyone, you have to pick a team.
• Scared of picking the wrong team: fear of missing out on a new area, or a rising idea can lead to never making a decision.
• Listening to your thoughts and believing them!

* You might be shocked that I say you can read too much – but it’s true, especially when you’re in the writing phase. You become plagued with self-doubt (“I’ll never be able to write that well”), find extra ideas that you want to shove in (and ruin a great structure), distract yourself with over-consumption (see waste #3). You can read more later!

However, you’ve not been completely bad! In Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein argues that to succeed in any field it’s a great idea to develop broad interests and skills while everyone around you is rushing to specialize. He discovered that in most complex and unpredictable fields it’s the generalists, not specialists, who excel. Generalists often find their path late, they’re more creative, more agile, and able to make connections that the specialists can’t see. So, you’ve been doing the right things all these years. Now, however, it’s time to specialise – for now! 

How to fix a lack of focus

If the problem is over-thinking then the solution is to stop (for now). Give yourself a break from thinking about everything. Capture the thoughts, of course, but then put them aside. Your brain will know where they are and be able to retrieve them when the time is right. For now, just stop (thinking!).

• Make Dump Files: write your ideas in your journal, capture them on your iPhone, have a box by your desk or bed where you throw post-it notes and scraps of paper with all your wonderful (non-focused) ideas, have an Evernote (or note-taking app of your choosing) category for each of your interests.
• Decide: get clear on what you really love, what you are excellent at doing / teaching / creating, what need you can serve, and who has the money to pay you to serve them. Use my magic niche-omatic tool for experts below.
• Focus in: go deep on one area, one niche, one person. Imagine them, give them a name, describe their pain, and how you can help them. List all the ways you can help, capture all your helpful thoughts.
• Master that one niche: specialize (for now) on solving the problems for your selected group of people. Consider all the ways you can help them: tools, techniques, books, podcasts, courses, training. Develop a portfolio of IP (intellectual property) that you can earn from.
• Automate: if you really must move on to another area, make sure you have created a legacy that will continue to bring you rewards from your previous hard work.

Niche-omatic Tool for Experts

If you’re struggling to decide on one niche (for now) then try plotting your ideas on my niftily titled: Niche-omatic Tool for Experts. You can see I plotted a couple of my “niches”.

If your idea for a niche falls into any category except the top right (heart) then stop, pick a different niche (unless of course you don’t want to make money or you don’t want to make readers/clients happy!) If you’re over in the exclamation points or question marks there’s still room for manoeuvre, but you do need to move!

I have written a lot of books on Spain, moving to Spain, buying property in Spain, the food and cooking of Spain. I have a website that includes hundreds of articles on this niche. It does well in the search engines. I have a mailing list for that niche. I learnt and earnt a lot creating, writing and serving that niche. It’s almost on autopilot, and that frees me up to serve my next niche – experts who want to write.

I also have a website for horse lovers who want to train naturally with hula hoops – only me and my other half ever go there!

Solution for writing waste #1: Pick one niche, master it, automate it, move on. Stop (for now).

Resources

The Thought Leaders Practice – Matt Church: A great book for helping experts find a focus. It explains how you identify and target the market which values your knowledge most highly, refine and package your IP to make it commercially smart and utilise multiple delivery modes to maximise the value of your offering. Read it!

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World – David Epstein: Will make you feel better about your lack of focus till now!

PS: I made up some words in this article – soz!

Writing Waste 2: Too many ideas (Writing In Progress)

An overview of The 8 Writing Wastes can be found here: Are you committing these 8 Writing Wastes? (The 8th Writing Waste is a killer)

Link to: Writing Waste 1. Not enough focus

Writing Waste 2: Too many ideas (Writing In Progress)

“Venus, I want to see Venus. Now Saturn! Saturn’s my favourite. Look Mars is coming up. Quick back to Venus, faster it’s going behind the mountain!”

When we moved to the #DisasterFarm a couple of years ago we were impressed with the lack of light pollution and the fantastic view of the stars. So I bought my Italian-Half a telescope (taller than me) for his birthday. I then tortured him nightly by insisting we swept the sky, moving from planet to planet, focusing in only to quickly move on again. I’m not allowed to play with his birthday present anymore.

This desire to move on to the next interesting thing, the next article, or shiny idea that pops into your head (the next exciting planet) is waste #2 – too many ideas. When you move on without fully appreciating or finishing what you started (counting the rings of Saturn!) you create waste. This waste is very closely aligned with Writing Waste #1, and follows on from fixing it.

If you followed my advice for Writing Waste #1, you now have a niche that you want to focus on, so you can avoid making more un-focused waste. You’ve probably got all excited, and you’re coming up with ideas for your new niche. You probably have a bazillion ideas, and a trazillion writing projects started. You’re now into the making focused waste stage, well done.

I call this “Shiny new document syndrome”: You are so prolific with ideas that you create a new book document every day. You have outlines for loads of interesting books. You jump from one to the next, writing a little, adding a new idea. Each book (or article) idea has 10 different titles and subtitle ideas (see waste #6). You have scraps of paper, open notebooks, post its, voice notes – hundreds of them. You probably end up writing a lot. But it all sits on your computer or your desk, because you never finish an idea, an article nor book. You just create a stack of Writing In Progress (WIP). You write in isolation and never get feedback, because you never ship. No one gets to read what you’ve written.

The causes of too many ideas come from not being able to discern what’s important right now. In the book Essentialism [1], Greg McKeown says we should ask ourselves: “Is this the very most important thing I should be doing with my time and resources right now?” We’ll look at how you make the decision in a minute, for now note the two parts to the question: time and resources. You really only have so many hours in the day, and finite resources to spend. How you spend your hours and resources is important – you need to stop wasting them. You must become more discerning. Building good judgment into your writing is a skill, and I have some tools and techniques to help you.

How to fix having too many ideas in progress

You can take the girl out of engineering, but you can’t take engineering out of the girl – I’m going to introduce you to an engineering tool – the Kanban [2]. You will have come across this in many different guises, it’s a visual way of showing work in progress and where it is in your system. The simplest Kanban would be a board on the wall, and have just three columns: To Do, Doing, Done. There would be multiple cards of work in progress in each column. As the work progresses through the system (the factory in the real Kanban), it moves from column to column, so you can see at any time where there are holdups – waste – in the system.

I’ve modified it a bit (of course!) and have the 3F Model (not to be confused with my 3F-Friday, which I’ll tell you about in Waste 3), with some simplified rules. Have a look at the model below, you can see there are 3 columns beginning with Fs (you can see how inventive I am with naming things!).

FOCUS: In this column you can only have ONE THING [3]. Just one, uno, ein, un, unu, ceann, หนึ่ง. You get my point – ONE.

FUTURE: This is where everything else goes. All 99 other writing projects sit here – all of them, no exceptions.

FINISHED: When you have finished a writing project (fully finished – shipped – other people are reading it finished*) you move your post-it here. Don’t underestimate the FINISHED column, this will grow, soon it will be bigger than your FUTURE column, you’ll feel fabulous and it will keep you going when writing gets tough.

Very simple. So, how do you decide on your ONE THING for the FOCUS column?

Capture your Writing In Progress (WIP)

Choose your weapon: either get a big white board and go old school style with post-its, or use a Kanban-esque internet-based, trendy system like Trello.com (I love Trello), where you can make columns and add notes, share with other people, move things easily without them falling off or flying away when you open the window. Make your 3F Model by creating 3 columns and writing: FOCUS, FUTURE and FINISHED at the top.

Capture your thoughts: take stock of all your WIP – writing projects currently in progress. Be honest! Make a list of each article, document, book idea that you have started and not finished. Write them down on post-it notes – one item per post-it. Stick them all on your real or virtual board – in the FUTURE column for now.

Evaluate the best idea (for now): select the one thing (for now). The article, book chapter, outline, speech, whatever writing project you’re working on – and put it in FOCUS.

Decide on the one thing – FOCUS FINDER

You might be stuck on how you evaluate the best idea (for now). Let’s keep it simple – use the Focus Finder.

Make a table with the following headings: Will serve my target audience; Will advance my business (or personal) goals; I have the time and resources; Total. If you don’t know who your target audience is, go back to Writing Waste #1.

List all your writing in progress in the first column. Score each idea on a scale of 1-3 with 1 being bad or hard, and 3 being easy or good. Then add up the scores. The WIP with the highest score wins – if you have a tie, then just pick ONE! Really, just pick your favourite, stop complexifying it (see waste # 5).

Now, do the ONE THING. Just do it till it’s done. Don’t stop till it’s shipped*.

When you’ve finished, re-evaluate (things change, you might have more time or resources…) and then do the next ONE THING.

You might be tempted to put “Write my booky wook” in the FOCUS column. DON’T DO THAT! That’s not ONE THING. (Sorry for the shouting, but I wanted to make sure you heard me.) A BOOK, a whole book, is not ONE THING! Really! A book needs to get broken down into smaller component parts, those parts – one at a time – can go in your FOCUS column. The rest go in the FUTURE. We’ll look at how you break a book down later in my articles, I promise.

Solution for too much Writing In Progress: Focus on one book chapter (or article, or speech, or course module) for now. You can write more later. Stop starting, start stopping.

* If you are the most discerning person in the world, and have justified judgment, then perhaps you are perfecting procrastination (see waste #6). Bad judgment might not be the reason you’re not shipping your writing. You might be struck with fear. Fear of being read, fear of being wrong, fear of sticking your head above the parapet, fear that people might not like what you’ve written. Read Waste #4 for some tips to get you moving, and Waste #6 to break through your procrastination.

Resources

[1] Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown – not another “How to get more done in less time and be superman” book – a book about getting the right thing done. It’s about discipline.

[2] Kanban – Kanban is a scheduling system for lean manufacturing and just-in-time manufacturing.

[3] The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller – not just a beautiful cover, this is a beautiful book. From their blurb: “By focusing their energy on one thing at a time people are living more rewarding lives by building their careers, strengthening their finances, losing weight and getting in shape, deepening their faith, and nurturing stronger marriages and personal relationships.” OMFG – who doesn’t want all that?

Writing Waste 3. Messing about with apps, tools, systems

An overview of The 8 Writing Wastes can be found here: Are you committing these 8 Writing Wastes? (The 8th Writing Waste is a killer)

Stop messing about with apps, tools, and systems pretending you’re writing – you’re not fooling anybody

One of our big dogs here at the #DisasterFarm, Gilda, loves bones. In fact she loves them so much that when we give all 6 big dogs a bone each, she systematically steals each bone (after distracting the other dog with a “look over there at that lion”-type bark) and arranges the spoils in a semi-circle of joy around her. She has a little nibble on one, and whilst she’s not looking one of the victims of her thievery will try and recover their bounty. Gilda rushes to defend it, spending the whole day guarding the 6 bones, never getting a moment to enjoy her own. She is perpetually in motion, but getting nothing done.

If you’ve never seen a dog with 6 bones, look in the mirror. You might be doing the same as Gilda. Spending all your time looking at your booty, slathering over apps, toying with tools and no time actually doing anything useful.

Things that feel like progress but are actually just motion:

1. Consuming other people’s apps or tools (and feeling curious)
2. Reading about other people writing (and feeling despondent about your own abilities)
3. Watching other people write (and feeling jealous)
4. Discussing the latest tools, techniques, ideas on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc (and feeling smart)
5. Buying the latest course, book or magic system on writing (and feeling hopeful)
6. Planning the best way of writing (you’re feeling optimistic)
7. Testing the newest notepad, moleskin, gel pen, planner (and feeling creative)

You are letting your feelings drive your activity!

These problems start with -ing words (if you wanna get technical they’re gerunds, non-finite verb forms) – consuming, reading, discussing, buying, planning, testing – feeling.

These wasteful activities are ongoing – they don’t stop – they are non-finite – you may never finish!

If you’ve tried out all the writing tools, downloaded the trials of Scrivener and Evernote and BlahdeBlah, read Anne Lamott and Stephen King, bought enough stationery to keep Amazon in business for a year, and convinced yourself that you’re in motion to write your book you’re like a dog with 6 bones. If you’re always looking for the right system, book, or guru and you consume them, try them out, waste your time… then give up for a few weeks and get on with some “real work”, you’re like a dog with 6 bones.

You’re making waste.

The only activities that really matter are writing, editing and shipping your work.

The causes of messing about with writing stuff

There are a few causes, you might think of more:

1. Perfecting procrastination – see waste #6. If you try hard enough you can be “writing your book” for a lot of years if you still haven’t found the right pencil!
2. Lack of reader focus – see waste #1. When you don’t know who you are writing for your flitty thoughts gain control of your activity.
3. Doubting yourself, or your ability to write. Only your audience will be able to tell you if it’s good enough – you have to ship it to get feedback!
4. “Escape-goating” – blaming the tool, app, system, guru for your lack of writing, so you keep looking for something better. You have everything you need right now.

This constant search for the perfect app (that will do the writing for you) is fruitless. You’re like a cat with two laps. Pawing at one whilst looking longingly at the other. Jumping to the new, squishier lap, only to lament the loss of lap number one.

Thoreau said it best: “It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”

How to fix messing about with apps, tools and systems as an excuse for not writing

Let’s fix the two biggest problems – searching for the perfect system and trying out all the tools. When you fix these two, the other issues will disappear too:

1. Pick your system and stick with it: Planning and creating a system is a good idea – but do it once, not every couple of weeks!  My writing and running my business/life system is something like this:
   • Monday = Marketing. If you are an expert you need to market yourself. Set aside a day to do it. Don’t leave it till you have the time, you won’t!
   • Tuesday and Thursday are client days (Together). Usually I work in isolation, so these two days are my favourite days of the week – I get to work with the wonderful, talented people who are on my mentoring program.
   • Wednesday = Writing. A whole day dedicated to writing, editing, shipping something!
   • Friday = Fix it! Finish it! Feck it! I like to have Friday’s off, but if I have broken something during the week or have left something un-finished, I work till it’s completed. Then I can say Feck it, and take the rest of the day off!
   • Saturday and Sunday are Sh!t days. Here at the #DisasterFarm we have a lot of animals, they make a lot of poo! Someone has to clean it up!

   Don’t copy mine (or anyone else’s) system – create your own that works for you. Set boundaries. Decide on your writing day (or hour) and get it in your calendar. Plan in advance what you will be writing. Don’t let your writing time be wasted with consuming other people’s stuff. I’m going to talk more about planning your work in later articles, but for now, fix your waste, so you have time to write.

2. Accept your current tools: I’m agnostic in all things writing – MS Word or GoogleDocs? Evernote or Keep? Pen and paper or voice recording? Self-publish or hybrid publish? It really doesn’t matter. I have my favourites (and I’ll share them with you if you want to know), but they all do the job of helping you capture thoughts, organise ideas and write more, so you can ship and influence the people who need to hear you. So, stop blaming the app, sit your ass down and write.

On the subject of asses… A while ago (14th Century) a philosopher called Buridan had an ass (well I don’t think he actually had an ass, but was just thinking about a hypothetical ass he might have had, as philosophers do). This hungry and thirsty ass (not a very responsible ass owner, I’m glad it was only a theoretical ass) was placed exactly at the midpoint between a big pile of hay and a big bucket of water. Because the ass is completely irrational (all equines are) and couldn’t decide whether to quench his thirst or satiate his hunger, he died in the middle, of hunger and thirst. (Gilda, let that be a lesson to you.)

The moral of the story? Don’t be an ass!

Solution: The tools you have available to you right now are good enough. Pick up the pen and paper, and write. Open the Word document and type. Switch on the voice recorder on your phone and talk. Stop consuming, start creating.

Till next time…

PS: To solve my dog with 6 bones problem, I have to psychologically and physically intervene. I enforce the rule that Gilda cannot take the other bones, I am very bossy. If you need bossing give me a call!

Writing Waste 4. Waiting for the right time, permission or inspiration

An overview of The 8 Writing Wastes can be found here: Are you committing these 8 Writing Wastes? (The 8th Writing Waste is a killer)

Writing Waste 4. Waiting for the right time, permission or inspiration

The duvet naan[1] had been devoured, the spicy sauces had been dipped, the plates were being cleared away, “Wait! Leave me those chutney bowls, the side plates and a balti dish,” we weren’t finished yet.

During the “team building event” (aka: take a long Friday lunch) I’d heard a couple of my guys saying how stressed they were about new technology, how things were always changing, just when they thought they knew something it all changed again, and that they always felt just a little bit behind. I grabbed the balti dish, and said: “Everything inside this dish is my knowledge, right now. The perimeter of the dish is where what I know hits what I don’t know. Out there…” I pointed to the remains of poppadoms, half drunk coke, general debris, other diners, “…is the infinity of what I don’t know.”

There’s always a square plate!

I pulled the other plates over and started shoving them together, just slightly overlapping the edges, to form a jumbled mess of curry and crumbs. “Each of you has your own plate of knowledge, and when we stick all the plates together we have some overlapping knowledge and stuff each of you know that the others don’t. Together we create a bigger mass of knowledge, and also a bigger perimeter where what we know hits the outside infinity of what we don’t know. Every time we increase our circles of knowledge, we also increase our perimeter of what we don’t know. It’s inevitable. The more you know the more you know you don’t know.”

Well, that’s how I remember the conversation – they probably just remember the curry and playing with plates.

We’ve been calling this my “Plates Theory” for the last 20 years.[2]

Every time I lay the plates to eat I remind myself of how much (and how little) I know.

If you are waiting to write your erroneous reasoning goes something like: I’ll write when I’ve finished my next degree, coached 100 more people, tested my model on three more clients. If you wait until you know enough, you will wait forever. 

One of the most crippling wastes for an expert is assuming you don’t know enough – that debilitating doubt increases with every article read, seminar given, question answered, team member coached. If you didn’t have that doubt you’d be an ass (remember we don’t want to be asses). As your domain, and expert knowledge increases, so does your knowledge of what you don’t know.

Waiting – for whatever reason – is a waste. The time to write is now.

There are usually two things people are waiting for when they waste time:

1. Waiting to write, and
2. Waiting for readers.

Both are deadly wastes of time and resources, and feed each other in a vicious wasteful circle of doom, sadness and over-sized bread products!

1. Waiting for the right time, permission or inspiration to write

Waiting till you know enough will mean you wait forever. There is always more to learn, you just need to be one chapter ahead.

Waiting until you have the time to write means you won’t write. You will never have enough time to write a book. I promise you.

Waiting for the economy, Brexit, markets, AI to change everything is an excuse. You change things to fit the current circumstances, work within your constraints.

Waiting for permission from your peers, colleagues, mom, other half is a waste. You don’t need anyone’s permission, you’re a big kid now.

Waiting for the muse, inspiration, special meme day means you’re messing about. You will never be ‘struck by inspiration and suddenly get in the flow.’ That’s not how it works.

2. Waiting till you have some readers to write

This is a super catch-22. You’re waiting for readers before you put your best stuff out there. But the readers are waiting for your best stuff before they put their hands up and say they’re interested. As an expert who is writing (who wants to be read, because you have something important to share) you must start marketing (ooohhh, scary word) right now. You need to create a body of work that demonstrates your knowledge, shows your interest in your readers, and how you can help them.

You need a platform (your website). You need content (your writing, videos, podcasts). You need a method of capturing the readers (not physically, their email address is good enough) who are truly interested (newsletter). Then you need to write more just for them (focus). I’ll cover more about writing to market yourself as an expert in a later article.

In The Decision Book by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler they ask: “When was the last time you did something for the first time?” And you must have heard (at least a thousand times) that, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

Perhaps today you write and publish something for the first time. Even without an audience. Let me know if you do.

How to fix waiting to write

The best way to fix waiting for the right time is to get a better perspective on time. In particular your own time left on the planet.

When you wait you waste – you don’t have time to waste – none of us do.

Don’t take my word for it. If you’re feeling brave, curious or masochistic go and fill in your details on this wonderfully named “Death Clock” – it’s run by an insurance company, so obviously they have a vested interest in selling you life insurance, but it will give you a wake up call. Or nightmares!

In The Courage to Be Disliked [3], Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga say: “The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment.” So make use of your equipment before it falls off.

I have two tools for you. My first is inspired by Tim Urban of Wait But Why, a wonderful writer who manages to make the most complex things simple, and fun. He sketched and wrote a huge article on Your Life in Weeks, I read it a few years ago, and it has really stuck with me. Now, I’m going to model it (rip it off) for you. You’re welcome.

Tool 1: Your Life in Bars [4]

Put a big X where you are right now (your age) on the lovingly drawn diagram.

Ask yourself the following questions:

1. How many years do I have left to get my ideas, message, help out there to the people who need to hear it?
2. Where am I wasting the most time?
3. How could I use that wasted time to get my writing written?
4. If I don’t do it now, when?
5. If I don’t write this book, article, speech, who will?

Tool 2: Future You!

I’ve shared this one before. It’s worth sharing again because it works. Go and send yourself a future you decision email.

If your time is short, it makes sense to make the best use of your time and stop wasting it. Seneca said: “We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.” Stop making your life short by waiting – write.

The decision you make today to write your book, publish your writing, share an article, do that Ted talk will impact you in the future. Tell your future self what you have decided today.

Our time is finite, only knowledge (and duvet naan) is infinite. Make the time to be the one who helps, entertains, educates those people who know a little less than you. Grow their perimeter of knowledge.

Solution to waiting to write: Make a decision that writing your book (article, whitepaper, speech) is the right solution for you and your business goals. Start now!

Resources/References

[1] Duvet naan or family naan is an invention of the Balti Triangle in Birmingham – a naan bread made for sharing, that covers the table (for a few seconds before everyone dives in).

[2] The plates theory was inspired by this quote: “The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.” ― Ralph W. Sockman

[3] If you’re finding it difficult to start writing, then read The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. Apparently it’s a “Japanese phenomenon” which helps liberate your way of thinking, allowing you to develop the courage to change and ignore the limitations that you might be placing on yourself. I really liked the story.

[4] Just making sure you get the reference – “Your Life in Bars” – the bars you are putting in front of yourself, that are incarcerating you, holding you back… I didn’t want you to miss my clever pun, or think I was suggesting you go to a bar or two!

PS: As you lay the plates for your next meal, smile, and appreciate how much you actually know about your subject. You can thank my good friend, Rintu Basu, for showing me how to put little hooks in your mind. Every time I brush my teeth I think of Rintu.

Writing Waste 5. Complexifying simplicity

An overview of The 8 Writing Wastes can be found here: Are you committing these 8 Writing Wastes? (The 8th Writing Waste is a killer)

5. Complexifying simplicity

The need to complexify stuff is uniquely human.

When I outlined this article about 3 months ago, as part of the series of 8 articles, I created a template for each article: they’d all start with a story, they’d have a tool or technique, I’d draw a simple image (with lots of colours), I’d identify further reading… I knew that if I did this all the articles would read well, be useful to the reader, and deliver what I wanted you to know (that capturing thoughts, organising ideas and reducing waste is the secret to writing more!)

Then I got to writing up this article. In my handwritten notes I didn’t have an opening story. I was stuck. If I didn’t open with a story the article was doomed, it would be a failure, you wouldn’t understand me, I would have screwed up. I needed a story, I wracked my brain, thought about cats, dogs, horses, plants, cheese, engineering – nothing – I had no complexifying simplicity story. What would I do. I’d have to start again, write a different article, apologise, miss a week… What if I made something up? Asked a friend? Used someone else’s story? Could I write the article without a story? Would it work? I did nothing on the writing of this article until the last minute. It was too complex…

Complexifying stuff comes natural to me – and probably you. There are a couple of ways we waste our time when we complexify things up: 1. feel overwhelmed, do nothing or do everything, and 2. let the complexity out into the world, and confuse our readers.

1. Feeling overwhelmed by (creating) complexity: It all seems just too much. You’re feeling overwhelmed by the things you need to learn, understand, write, do. Every day someone comes out with a new book writing method, a better way of gaining followers, a different method of creating podcasts. Social, make a video everyday, Facebook Live, start a mailing list… Your book’s cover design, size, the images inside, your marketing platform…  What should you do? Everything? Nothing? Just when you think you’re starting to understand stuff it all gets really complex again. So you reorganise things, create a new system, do everything, do nothing, make it even more complex. This is waste!

Overwhelm leads to under-activity.

I’ll let the Roman satirist, Petronius Arbiter (27 AD — 66 AD), have the last word on this (my emphasis in bold!): “We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”

2. Letting the complexity out into the world: As you start to write you think of all the things you really need to tell the reader – the background to the technique, the history, why they should use it, why they shouldn’t, what else they could do, who has used these ideas, the 17 case studies, the 51 scientific reports, the blind trials – there’s so much you need to tell the reader, otherwise they won’t know everything and it’ll be a disaster! My book will need to be 800,000 words, with 70,000 images, a million footnotes…

I’m going to have the last word(s) on this one – stop complexifying simplicity stupid pants!

How to fix your natural urge to complexify simplicity

It’s all about constraints. No, not those kinds!

Without constraints you are lost in a sea of complexity. Constrain your urges, your time, your actions and your resources. I’m going to cover using constraints to make you a better writer in a later article, but for now know this:

Constraints are good for you, boundaries are essential, without focus you are complexifying everything.

In the context of removing waste from the writing process, you must understand who you are writing for, their need to move, what they need from you and your ability to deliver within a time/word constraint. These are the important constraints. Go and have a look at Waste #1 for more information on finding focus.

As usual I have a simple model for you – well this time a two part model – the MoSCoW Method with a Priority Slide.

MoSCoW Method in Writing

The MoSCoW thingy is a a prioritisation technique from software developers and business analysts to create a common understanding amongst stakeholders of the importance of deliverables. In other words – what’s important for the important people? These are the constraints.

A team of creative software engineers could deliver many lovely things within the scope of a project: flashing lights, moving images, whizzy stuff. If they don’t stick to what the stakeholders want and need (the constraints) it leads to confusion, inefficiency, gold-plating, a mess, never-ending writing, complexity… never shipping or shipping crap.

We don’t want crap.

We can use the MoSCoW method for our own writing. In writing a book, article or speech, the stakeholders (the important people) are you and the reader. Let’s have a quick look at the model.

• MUST – what must go in the book, speech or article – what’s critical. If you don’t include this you fail.
• SHOULD – important but not vitally necessary. This should be added, but only if you have time and word count available, and it works with the structure of the book.
• COULD – desirable but not necessary. This could be added but won’t make or break the book.
• WON’T (or would have) – waste, waste, waste! This is what you WON’T add in your book.

How do you use the model? After you’ve done your the first draft of your book, article, speech or whitepaper ideas outline (not writing, the outline) you measure each idea you want to write and place it on the chart below.

The MoSCoW Priority Slide

We (me and my brother Joe) introduced the priority slide in our first book, The Gorillas Want Bananas, to help small businesses and entrepreneurs decide what was important in their marketing. I use this tool on a daily basis for most of the stuff I have to get done – it helps me prioritise and avoid the priorities sliding.

To make a great Priority Slide you need constraints. Here we have Importance to the Reader on the vertical axis (reader = stakeholder), and your Ability to Deliver on the horizontal. Your ability to deliver covers your time available for this writing project (time to write and time to deliver if it’s a speech or word count for a book) and your knowledge on this subject (sometimes you really shouldn’t be writing this!)

Take each of the ideas you plan to write about (they’re probably on post it notes or cards in your Trello) and place them on the grid by asking yourself:

1. Is it of the highest importance to the reader in moving them from where they are now to where they need and want to be?
2. How well am I able to deliver this with my knowledge and the time available (space in book/article, time on stage)?

Anything falling in the first quadrant, bottom left, WON’T, goes in the bin – it’s waste! If it’s not important to the reader, and you don’t have time or knowledge to deliver it – BIN IT!

Anything falling in the top right quadrant is a MUST. You must work it into the speech, article, book.

Your goal: Organise your ideas, cut and discard, so that you create (write) simply – otherwise you are disrespecting your and the reader’s time.

The MoSCoW Priority Slide can be used for all activities that you’re doing – marketing, writing, business, family… When you know who the stakeholders are and what’s important to them, you can design a great priority slide with the right constraints, and make the decisions easily.

When you use the MoSCoW Priority Slide you can simplify what you need to do.

Solution: There are a few things, that when done well, will have the most impact. Simplify complexity.

Writing Waste 6. Perfecting procrastination

An overview of The 8 Writing Wastes can be found here: Are you committing these 8 Writing Wastes? (The 8th Writing Waste is a killer)

6. Perfecting procrastination

Asking for a friend: is it ok to write a book proposal, spend at least 200 hours perfecting it, then not pitch it to any publishers? Then, come up with another fab idea for a different book, and start the non-pitching proposal process again? Asking for another friend: is it ok to write 40,000 words, edit them, work them over for at least 2 years, then just re-read them to yourself every couple of months? Another friend wants to know: is it ok to outline 20 articles, write them up, post them on your website and not tell anyone about them?

I have lots of crazy friends – you might be one of them. All of these friends exist (they’re not my imaginary friend, that’s Steve) – all of these friends are suffering from perfecting procrastination.

This sixth writing waste is an arse. Are you re-reading your first paragraph, or first chapter, working it over again and again? Perfecting the opening sentence on the pitch to the potential publisher? Re-working the book outline, seventeen times? Spending too long on perfecting the chapter titles, the font used for the headings, the line spacing in the Word document? You know you’re overdoing it, and at the same time driving yourself and everyone else mad. You know you’re putting off the inevitable, avoiding doing the real work, dodging the moment of shipping (and getting feedback).

You might be perfecting procrastination from fear, imposter syndrome, or OCD – what do I know, I’m a writing coach not a psychiatrist.

Whilst I don’t know what exactly is causing your own private hell of procrastination, I do know perfecting procrastination leads to madness. Watch this video (no cats) to see my favourite ‘psychiatrist’, then take his advice: https://youtu.be/Ow0lr63y4Mw

What is procrastination anyway?

Roy Baumeister, a real psychologist, says that procrastination is a “self-defeating behavior pattern marked by short-term benefits and long-term costs.” [1]

Procrastination has generated huge tomes of information – everyone has a theory, and plenty of them are really funny. Take a look at this video about the mind of a master procrastinator, from Tim Urban at Wait But Why, if you want to see what’s going on inside your and my mind right now. The irony of us both going off to watch this, giggle at the cartoons and marvel at how stupid everyone else is, whilst we should be doing something useful, isn’t lost on me.

It seems most people think the opposite of procrastination is productivity, and the tools and techniques to make you more productive are more numerous than the reasons one procrastinates.

I can give you at least 20 different productivity hacks and ways to “stop” procrastinating, adding even MORE things to your to do list. Here’s a few: pomodoro, no zero days, mindfulness, meditation, mantras, habit stacking, accountability partners, morning rituals, setting deadlines, JFDI, DFDI (just say no), 2-minute rule, make a list, don’t make a list, create a crisis (really that’s a hack, not every day normal), eating frogs for breakfast (I don’t remember, nor recommend that one), sharpening axes (OK, getting a bit macabre now). You probably already have this list, maybe an even longer one – and yet you still procrastinate. Why?

You don’t need extra tools, techniques or methods to write more – you need to stop your own brain screwing with you.

Your problem (and my problem) isn’t one of not knowing what to do, it’s about doing what we know we should do…

The opposite of procrastination is not productivity – it is simply action

My theory is that you are tricking yourself, lying to yourself and running stupid mind routines that don’t serve you anymore. You are sabotaging your own success with FUD – fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

FUD is a disinformation strategy used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, cults, propaganda and YOUR BRAIN. Your brain uses it to emotionally paralyse you, making you feel tired, bored, distracted, angry, sad, hungry – whatever your bad brain needs to do to stop you from taking action, and getting a reaction from the world.

Your brain sends you off on a wild goose (frog?) chase looking for tools and tactics to keep you busy, using up more brain cycles, saving you from feedback, protecting you from judgment, securing you in your own fantasy world… then it usually makes you watch a kitten video or buy some underwear from M&S. (Or is that just me?)

How to fix perfecting procrastination

You need to change your perfect procrastination of fear, uncertainty and doubt, to a more healthy Accelerated Action of:

• Courage – rationalise the fears (some of them might be real), work out if they will have an impact and then be courageous in going forward.
• Clarity – be clear on who you are writing for, and the massive benefits they (and you) will receive.
• Confidence – create confidence by writing, publishing and getting feedback – this is the only way you learn and improve. Work with a coach or mentor if you need more skills.

Accelerated Action is a habit – just like procrastination is a habit.

This isn’t something you’re born being able to do, you get better at it from doing it.

James Clear says in Atomic Habits [3]: “I didn’t start out as a writer. I became one through my habits.” Then he went on to write a book about habits!

You need a change of thinking, which will lead to a change of acting.

Change from, “I must do some writing,” to “I am a writer.”

I’m going to cover your thinking and acting in a later article – FARTs and the E-FART model – for now, know that you have control over your thoughts, and they accelerate your actions.

Solution: Just. Stop. It. And take action!

Resources

[1] In chapter 9 of the grown up book, Self-Regulation and Self-Control, Selected works of Roy F. Baumeister – https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315175775/chapters/10.4324/9781315175775-9

[2] Brain cycles are yet another of my made up things, they go something like this – when you are thinking of something you use up brain cycles (imagine each brain cycle is like a breath, you are doing it all the time without noting). You can only think of one thing at a time, so if you are using your brain cycles to think about stupid things your brain can’t do anything useful for you. Brain cycles will stop one day (when you die!), and you only have a certain amount of them – so you must stop wasting brain cycles on stupid thoughts (or making up stupid things).

[3] Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear

Writing Waste 7. Under-utilizing expert skills

An overview of The 8 Writing Wastes can be found here: Are you committing these 8 Writing Wastes? (The 8th Writing Waste is a killer)

Writing Waste 7. Under-utilizing expert skills

When I moved to Spain in 2005 there was a lot to learn. The language (of course), the customs (two kisses anyone?), adaptability (no teabags in the supermarket!), attitude (chillax Debs), names (David the Elder, Shrek, 17 Antonios, El Gordo, 2 brothers called El Chato) and last but by no means least the different food and wine (I have nothing to add in brackets, but it looked weird without them).

Fortunately, my octogenarian, slipper wearing, motorcyclist neighbour, David the Elder, always had advice for me. He was an expert in many things including almond growing, sheep herding, wild boar rustling and chumbos harvesting. The chumbos plants grow rapidly here in the south of Spain (when there’s no plague of cochineal beetles) turning waste products (poo) into delicious fruits – prickly pears. David told me how yummy this fruit was, I couldn’t wait to try it, and when David wasn’t looking I grabbed a prickly pear off the tree.

I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you, but prickly pears are prickly (I blame my lack of language skills for my stupidity). They have bazillions of tiny hairs that break off when touched, and leave their length in your skin. My screaming and swearing alerted David to my extreme folly, and he quickly appraised the situation (as experts do) then deftly relieved my hand of the offending hairs (resolving my immediate problem). He then took me by the other hand and introduced me to his tool. A 2 metre long stick, with a 10cm piece of plastic drain pipe lashed to the end forming a T-shape.

To harvest chumbos safely you must first lean precariously into the depths of the bastard bushes, hook a pear in the drainpipe, and with one twisting motion detach the pear and throw it over your shoulder. You then roll the pear around on the ground with your slippered foot removing all of the offending hairs. You can now enjoy the spoils. With a little practice (and a lot of desire) I became quite good at this and have enjoyed prickly pears ever since.

David is an expert. You should always listen to experts, they tell you what can’t be done and why, then go ahead and do it anyway.

As an expert (coach, consultant, trainer, business owner) yourself you know this. You use your expertise to advise your clients and help them avoid the pain and get to their solution faster and easier. You understand the value an expert brings to complex or novel situations. When you find yourself on the other side of the equation, as a novice, it can be difficult to make the transition from master to apprentice.

There are a few symptoms of this writing waste that experts (writing to get their ideas out into the world) find themselves facing:

• not knowing where to start,
• struggling to finish,
• going slower than you’d like (or think is the norm),
• feeling frustrated at the high learning curve,
• panicking because there’s too much to do.

If you’re writing a book, a speech, a whitepaper, a podcast or blog and you believe that you must do this alone without calling upon the wealth of information, learning and skills available to you from experts you are heading for waste. If you’re constantly hurting yourself, poking your hand into the prickly bushes trying to grab hold of the produce and never enjoying the fruits of your labour (you knew that pun was coming didn’t you?), because you’re not taking expert advice you’re wasting your time, resources and opportunities.

Why you should listen to experts to avoid wasting your time, resources and opportunities

1. It can be painful doing it yourself. When you embark upon a task that you’ve never tackled before (like writing a book) you may make mistakes. Those mistakes will cost you in time, money and perhaps in opportunities.
2. You don’t always get what you wanted. The skills required to outline, write, develop, and publish a book (an article, speech or blog series) are wide and varied. You will have an awful lot to learn the hard way without expert help.
3. There are steps in the process. It’s important that the steps are carried out in the correct order at the right time to ensure success. How can you know what they all are?
4. There are skills involved. You may have never even heard of some of the skills required to write and publish a book. The language may be strange or new, the customs could be weird.
5. There are tools needed. When you only have a hammer… every problem looks like a nail.[1] It can take a long time to learn how to use these tools, do you have the time?
6. You need expertise and experience. You need the expertise to know what tool is needed at what stage and the experience to know what strategy will work best without lengthy trial and error.

Of course you can do it all yourself. You are smart enough to work it out, resourceful and curious enough to overcome obstacles. But ask yourself, is that the best use of your time? You hope you can save money in the long run, but you won’t save time. You may never even finish!

Saving money means spending time.

It’s no coincidence that the same words we use around money we use around time – spend, save, invest, waste!

How to fix thinking you have to do it all yourself

In this article we’re thinking about writing but this problem, of under-utilizing expert skills, happens in many areas of our lives. Saving money by not hiring a personal trainer? Cleaning the house yourself when your time could be better spent working with clients? Taking ‘free’ advice from well-meaning friends without expert knowledge of the problem? These are all ways we trick ourselves into thinking we’re making progress, but we’re just wasting time.

You don’t have to do everything yourself.

You just need to decide: what can I gain from using an expert?

In Essentialism[2], Greg McKeown says: “Done right, an essential intent is one decision that settles one thousand later decisions. It’s like deciding you’re going to become a doctor instead of a lawyer. One strategic choice eliminates a universe of other options and maps a course for the next five, ten, or even twenty years of your life. Once the big decision is made, all subsequent decisions come into better focus.”

Decide to invest in yourself and your writing. When you work with the right expert you can quickly and efficiently share your knowledge, get your book written, and gain more clients.

McKeown goes on to ask: “Which problem do I want?”

Seriously, do you want to stick your hand in the prickly bush or do you want to get that book written, the speech polished, the whitepaper finished?

Solution: You don’t have to know everything. You don’t have to do everything yourself. Find people who have done this before. Buy their courses, get mentorship, use their coaching services. Stop saving, start investing.

Resources

[1] Everyone wants to claim this quote, from Mark Twain to a U.S. government regulator named Lee Loevinger of the Federal Communications Commission. We’ll go with: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” written in 1966, The Psychology of Science: A Reconnaissance by Abraham H. Maslow, Published by Harper & Row, New York.

[2] I’ve said it before, I’m going to say it again – read this book: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.

Writing Waste 8. Writing the wrong book

An overview of The 8 Writing Wastes can be found here: Are you committing these 8 Writing Wastes? (The 8th Writing Waste is a killer)

Are you writing the wrong book?: The 8th Cardinal Writing Waste™

In my hand-painted 1970 Mark II Mini, I raced up the on-ramp of the Spaghetti Junction. This complicated, massively intertwined, knot of motorway, arterial city roads, and slip roads swooping over, around and under canals, rivers and train tracks in the heart of Birmingham would be the ultimate test for any driver. I had my pass certificate and the obsolete driver’s Learner plate on the passenger seat beside me. I was 18, with the rest of the day off work and free to drive anywhere I wanted, alone! In my mind I was zipping through the streets of Turin with the “The Self Preservation Society” as soundtrack.

It was only when I was assimilated in the streaming, bumper to bumper, fast moving traffic that I noticed the fuel gauge was on empty. Of course, it didn’t mean I had no fuel, I was curving steeply uphill over the Grand Union Canal, it could just be the fault of the inglorious British Leyland engineering in my almost 20 year old car. Just to be safe I thought I’d get off the motorway and find a petrol station. I looked over to the passenger seat. It was almost empty too – no bag, no purse, just the wetly signed driver’s license and red L-plate. I had no money, no fuel and I was travelling rapidly away from safety into a maze of concrete confusion.

The further I went the more trapped I felt. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t turn around. I had to keep going with the flow, to the wrong destination. My excitement at passing my driver’s test on the first go was completely extinguished. All happy thoughts had departed as I berated myself for my stupidity.

I got to the next exit junction, made the turn, and put my foot down, before realising I’d accidentally got back on the motorway – I was confused, lost and I was still heading in the wrong direction, but faster.

If only I’d taken time to think about where I wanted to go, what I needed to take and check that I had everything I needed and was well-equipped before I set off on my first solo adventure, I might have got to where I wanted go a little faster. Certainly with less drama!

This final waste is the worst of all, and is most likely a cause of the previous wastes. If you fix this one, you get to the root cause of your writing waste!

Writing Waste 8. Writing the wrong book

Most people writing a non-fiction business book are writing the wrong book for the wrong audience. They are heading in the wrong direction, wasting their precious time and frequently money (if they’re using a ‘done for them’ writing service) on a book that no one will read and won’t get them their desired outcome.

How can I say that? I’ve ghostwritten, published, coached and rescued hundreds of books for hundreds of business people, and by far the biggest problems I’ve seen are that the entrepreneur or business owner wants to write (or has written) a book that:

• Has no audience, or a vague audience (“Anyone who wants to read my book”)
• Won’t help the writer get more business (“I’ll make money selling books”)
• Is muddled, confused, lost in space (“I’ll just tell them what I know”)
• Won’t help the reader get what they need either! (“They need to hire me”)

So, what should you do?

If you don’t know your reader, their pains, their desire for movement from where they are now to where they need to be, then you can’t write the right book. When you write the wrong book you waste your time and theirs. Your book will disappear into the sea of unread, (or perhaps unfinished), ego trips that litter the virtual shelves of Amazon. When you are writing the wrong book you lose confidence in your ability, you perfect procrastination, wait for permission and inspiration, whilst consuming other people’s work and your life.

My cardinal writer’s rule: first know the reader, then write the book. This rule applies for whatever you are writing – a blog post, an article, a speech, a book, a thesis. You are writing for a reader, not you!

Why are you writing (a book) in the first place?

Expert business owners and entrepreneurs have been told that they need a book to help them raise their profile, get more business, elevate themselves in crowded market places and position themselves as thought leaders. 

The tendency, and trap, is to emulate an author you admire, model their style and the way their book is built. Whilst this isn’t a completely bad idea (modeling success is of course a smart move) there are some problems. You don’t know what their goals are for the book, how they will measure success. You also don’t know what got left out, what didn’t make the cut, how many iterations the book you have in your hands went through. You see the final product, not the process.

Fundamentally, you have to decide who you are writing for, the benefits they’ll get from reading your book and how the book will help you and your business. If you get this wrong, or don’t even consider the questions, you’ll write a crap book that no one will read, waste your time, your money and miss out on opportunities.

Let’s consider the implications of writing a bad book…

You might have already written a book, or be in the muddy throes, thrashing out those last few chapters and when you’ve finished your draft you have a few options. If you know it’s not great or you need help, you will probably:

• Pay someone plenty of cash to rescue it — I know, it’s my bread and butter work.
• Pay someone to rewrite it — basically starting again. I know about that too, that’s my jam.
• Procrastinate, go round in circles, ask your friends to read it and give feedback, add a few more charts, wait a year, get bored and go and do something else.
• Pay to publish anyway! Risk ruining your reputation, waste more money, fall out of love with your creation…

If you are writing, have written or are thinking of writing a business book, stop! Don’t go any further until you have tested your book against these proven (by me!) questions.

Answer two simple questions

1. What’s in it for the reader?
2. What’s in it for you?

That’s it.

If you are writing a business book then your book has a job to do. You aren’t writing it for fun.

How to fix writing the wrong book

To make sure you’re heading in the right direction, and writing the right book follow this simple process.

1. THINK: Capture your thoughts – then evaluate and decide which ones you think are important. Capture their thoughts by searching on Quora, interacting with your audience, reviewing your current work and clients. You may have to do this a few times. It’s not a once only think and it is done process.
2. CHECK: Organise your ideas into some sort of coherent, understandable format (a book title & subtitle, an outline, bullet points), then TEST with your audience. Does your book idea help them fulfill their wants (and needs)? Find out what they really think.
3. WRITE: Write some of your ideas as articles, develop the premise and your arguments, write a chapter or two. Write another chapter. Write a lot, write some more. Remember to edit for sanity and grammar. Then write some more.
4. SHIP: Get your writing out there fast and often. Consider them gifts to the reader – if you have something valuable to share then you need to ship it! Don’t keep it all on your computer because it’s not perfect yet. Don’t hold on to your best ideas in case someone steals them. SHIP, today, tomorrow, yesterday (after you’ve invented the time machine and saved me from the Spaghetti Junction). This is the only way you’ll get real feedback – feedback makes you a better writer.

Then do it all again.

Solution: Stop writing right now.

Take the time to understand your reader: capture their thoughts and yours. Work out how you can help them fulfill their reason for being: organise your ideas. Test your brilliant book idea: ask them. Write easily without waste, edit, produce and ship a book that will make a difference to their life and yours.

Stop: Think. Check. Write. Ship.

PS: You might be wondering how I escaped from Spaghetti Junction purgatory. Well, that’s what dads (and coaches) are for – saving your arse when you get lost.