Hey Everyone,
Hope you're having a great week. Here are a few things I've been reading, writing and pondering lately. Enjoy!
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1. Single-tasking: How to focus on one thing at a time, get more done, and feel less stressed
Jory MacKay (editor of the RescueTime blog) is a fantastic writer. This is just one of many examples. (He was actually featured in the New York Times.)
I really feel this post, especially these days.
The simple fact that multitasking takes more energy than single-tasking has compounding effects. Suddenly, because your attention is elsewhere, simple tasks take longer than they should, throwing off your daily schedule, and stressing you out because you fall behind.
When you fully focus on a single task, however, you feel less stress, and can even enjoy your work.
2. 4 Realistic Traffic Goals for Small(ish) Blogs
A great post from the folks at Animalz. Here's a summary, but be sure to check out the full post.
- Try to beat 6% traffic growth, month-on-month
- Aim for at least 45,000 yearly pageviews
- Get at least 11% of traffic from organic search
- Grow organic traffic by 8% each month
3. How to illustrate when you can’t draw to save your life
I'm a huge fan of creating simple visual elements to support your writing. Look at just about any post I've written for Animalz and Superpath and you'll find little images that I've made. I'm no designer but I really believe it helps. I use Sketch but there are tons of great tools out there.
4. Tweet of the Week
My 5 favorite @airtable automations for content teams:
— Kameron Jenkins 👋 (@Kammie_Jenkins) November 2, 2020
1⃣ Status change notifications
2⃣ Overdue assignment alerts
3⃣ Slack post upon publish
4⃣ Asset & ideas inventory
5⃣ "Post to publish today" alerts
Here's how I set those up 👇
5. Random Links
- New in the $100k Club: Freelance writer earning $275,000/year and Content Marketing Manager earning $180,000/year (plus equity)
- I'm helping Docsend hire a Director of Content and a Content Marketing Manager. Know someone looking a gig? Your referrals are great appreciated.
- Interesting: Should You Pay Content Marketing Candidates for Test Projects?
- We have a few new courses on Superpath Pro, including one on how to manage agencies and another on content team structure (even comes with org charts like this one). Learn more and get a free preview here.
Have a great weekend!
Jimmy
The Bulletin Board
- I started a business called Superpath. We help content marketers hone their skills with our courses, networking, office hours, content and community. You can check it out here.
- I started a Slack community for content marketers. It's free and there are 1,700+ wonderful people sharing, learning and looking out for each other. Learn more here.
- Want to brush up on your content marketing skillz? Check out my course 5 Days to Better Content Marketing. Join 400+ people that have taken and enjoyed it.
- I’ve had some great folks sponsor this newsletter lately. If you’re interested in promoting your product or service to 4,000+ incredibly smart people, reply to this email to chat more.