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A Look Behind the Scenes
The work I do with enterprising families who are transitioning their wealth to the next generation revolves almost exclusively on guiding the process that they’re following.
Such families also need to work with a number of content specialists, of course, who provide them with important parts of the overall solution they’re looking for.
There’s a big contrast between providing content and guiding a process, and one of the keys is simply recognizing which one you’re doing at any given time.
But this week, we’re going to deviate quite a bit from the world of family transitions, and look at process versus content from a different angle.
Over a Decade of Evolution
I began sharing my thoughts here on a weekly basis over a decade ago, just as I was discovering that the process part of this work was what I was called to do with the rest of my work life.
As it turns out, writing about 750 words every single week is not something that most people do, but I’ve got over 500 blogs up here already and have no intention of stopping.
In fact, as I write this, I’m heading out on vacation, and while I toyed with the idea of skipping a couple of weeks or recycling old posts, I decided to forge ahead.
Besides these blogs, I sometimes write longer form pieces, and I’m involved with hosting some podcasts too.
So all of that, plus two books I’ve written, amounts to a whole heck of a lot of content.
Switching to Process Now
Over the years, lots of colleagues have asked my why and how I do this, so the rest of this post will be about my process.
I am constantly looking for (and listening for) ideas to write about. Every time I jot one done in a notebook, I typically send myself an email with the details so that I can keep these in a folder labeled “blog ideas”.
My weekly routine usually begins sometime on Wednesday, when I look at that email folder of ideas and choose which one I’m going to write about this weekend.
After sleeping on it, I sometimes get a very quick start on Thursday evening, opening a Word file, creating a title, and getting a decent opening drafted.
I also do a search for some accompanying visuals on Unsplash, where I try to find three eye-catching and relevant photos or illustrations to go with my post.
The Friday/Saturday Crunch
The bulk of the writing happens on Friday and Saturday, but it’s hard for me to say which is a bigger day.
If I really get rolling on Friday, I can quickly wrap up on Saturday. If I’m not feeling it on Friday, I’ve got more left to tackle on Saturday.
The most important thing I want to share is that each post usually involves at least 4 or 5 “touchpoints”, where I open the Word file and make some progress.
These involve spurts of writing that last 10 to 20 minutes, and move the post along by some percentage (say 15% to 50%) towards completion.
I do not carve out a block of time to do this in one sitting. That might work for some, but for me, I like to make some progress and then let it sit.
The next time I pick it up, a few hours later or the next day, I read what I have from the beginning and then add another section or two.
Sunday and Monday
My blogs go out to subscribers on Monday, and that’s also when they get posted to LinkedIn.
But that blog wasn’t written the weekend just before, it was done the week prior, to give the people who help me out with the back end work some leeway to do their parts.
By Sunday morning I’m usually just making sure everything is fine, and then on Monday I send it to my support team for processing.
Meantime, the blog I wrote about a week ago comes to me to be okayed for release on Monday.
The overall process is pretty standard now, but the details vary, depending on many factors.
Much like my work with families, the big parts are similar, but there’s a heck of a lot of variability along the way.
