I Challenged Myself to Write a Daily Substack (& Found 9 Writing Hacks)

The cheat code to publish daily content (and grow your audience like never before)

Today’s article is going to show you what happened behind the scenes of my daily writing streak.

If you’re new here, some context:

On April 1st, I committed to writing and publishing a daily article on Substack.

I sat down every day for 1 hour and even live-streamed my writing sessions on YouTube.

I could have quit a dozen times. It wasn’t always easy.

But I never missed a day. And I got rewarded with 1,070 new newsletter subscribers.

Here are some “hacks” that are going to be bloody useful if you plan to publish daily content on the internet.

Squeeze every drop out of your brain juice

A few days back, I asked the members of my Telegram channel: "Which part of writing takes you the most time?"

50% responded: Ideating.

But ideation doesn't have to be a time-suck.

Ideating is a mental mode. It's a mode that you can't control. So when it kicks in, squeeze out every drop of it.

For me, it kicked in on day 1.

I was so excited, like a kid entering a candy store. I had roughly 15 ideas in less than 3 minutes. So I saved them straight into my note-taking app.

That way, every morning, I never faced writer’s block.

To hold your writing streak, you MUST have a lot of ideas. I always like to have more ideas than I can write about. It’s a bit like a savings account—you always want to have more money than you withdraw from it.

Decide fast (or die trying)

On day 3, I faced a dilemma:

Since I sat down to write at 6 am and had a LOT of ideas, I found myself caught in decision fatigue:

Which article should I write about first?

So what I did was I put these ideas on a calendar:

Content Calendar in Obsidian

Instead of them sitting randomly in a note… These ideas were now scheduled.

This way, I just have to open my content calendar in the morning and don’t have to make any choices about what to write.

It took me roughly 7 minutes, but it eliminated decision fatigue.

It’s not just about saving ideas. It’s also about assigning a deadline to each one of them.

This worked for several days… until it didn’t.

This way, I just have to open my content calendar in the morning and don’t have to make any choices about what to write.

This took me roughly 7 minutes, but eliminated decision fatigue.

It's not just about saving ideas. It's also about assigning a deadline to each one of them.

This worked for several days… until it didn't.

Write what you feel (not what you planned)

Doing the same thing every day becomes boring.

On some days, you’re just not going to be excited to write about something you assigned to your calendar 10 days ago.

So I found that giving myself a little bit more freedom would make sense. Because the worst thing that could happen is to lose the passion for what you're doing.

So I gave myself a little bit more freedom and allowed myself to choose from an array of 3 ideas.

It's not too much to trigger decision fatigue. But still allows you to go with your flow.

Keep it fun.

Constraints = Freedom

As creators, we spend a lot of time thinking. Sometimes, more than actually executing.

The beauty of running these kinds of challenges is that you don't give yourself the freedom to think. You put constraints on what you're going to do.

And it might sound crazy, but I found it liberating to sit down at 6 am, not having to think about what to do…

And simply crank out my daily article.

You don't need more freedom. You need more constraints.

Vanity metrics will kill your streak

After a week into the challenge, it could have been easy to get demotivated.

I didn't see any MASSIVE growth:

• Not more subs than usual

• Open rates below 25%

• 2–5 people on the live streams

• I'm alone in my room at 6 am

• Not many likes (or shares)

• Less than 10 comments

NOTE: Numbers went up because I took this screenshot 20 days after the articles were published

But I didn’t care. I kept going.

Two reasons for that:

• I enjoy the task of writing articles itself

• I didn't have any bigger expectations

Most people set too big expectations.

Find the reward in the process—not the outcome.

The hardest part of writing

It's the first draft. It's getting your thoughts on paper.

On day 9, I started to feel like a piece of feces:

• Bad sleep

• Body hurting

• Brain not working properly

But I kept pushing through.

And one of the things that I've been using throughout this challenge is AI to first draft my articles.

So my process is pretty simple:

1. I come up with the article angle.

2. I come up with the outline, the ideas, and the personal stories

3. Then, I pass it over to AI with a set of custom-made prompts that mimic my writing style.

AI drafts the article for me in less than 3 minutes. Then, I spend most of my time editing. (And editing is ten times easier than just writing the first draft.)

And this helps on shitty days.

Rehash your ideas

I've written thousands of pieces of content in my career.

And the truth is, content creation is about idea repetition.

You'll reuse and repeat a set of a few dozen ideas, but express them in different ways.

What I found super useful is having a note-taking system based on modular ideas.

Each idea (or note) is a building block.

Plus, I save the outlines for each article I write so I can reuse the same ideas faster.

So when writing, spend some time on your notes. Create “modular” ideas you can reuse across different pieces of content.

You can even feed them as context into AI to write your first drafts in 3 minutes.

Where You Write = What You Write

Holding the streak is "easy" when you're at home.

But during the challenge, I left home for a 4-day escape.

The resort was a terrible work environment. I usually write my articles from my recliner simply because I have back pain.

And as I was stuck there, I had two choices: get eaten alive by mosquitoes on the balcony… or sink into that saggy lobby couch that folded my spine like a deck chair.

These were the most painful writing sessions in a long time. But breaking the streak would have been more painful.

Holding the streak starts with the right environment.

You’re Not a Machine (But Act Like One Anyway)

Some days you're going to feel like thinking. Do the thinking.

But on some (most?) days you're just going to feel like crap and you just want to hold your streak.

You need to embrace these situations and be okay with them. Otherwise, it's going to quickly become boring and unsatisfying.

Adapt to your energy levels and mood by developing a system with:

• ideas

• prompts

• templates you can use that will help you push through on those crappy days.

Go the extra mile when you feel like it.

Stop making excuses

Nobody cares about your excuses, your bad sleep, or your “lack of time.”

You either show up or you stay invisible.