10 Commandments of Writing Part-Time

Writing part-time is an art. There’s no doubt about that. To have the stamina, patience, and guts to take on the challenge of building your thing on the internet while maintaining your day job? And a full-time life… That’s a big deal.

Most people don’t do things this way. The undertaking is too steep. Instead, they fall into one of two categories. Most will fall into the trap of wishing they could quit their 9 to 5 and spend their weekends daydreaming of a life that might have been had things turned out differently. Some, a fearless few, quit their jobs as a mark of their new lives, they take the radical step of handing in their notice before they’ve figured things out.

The trouble with both options, neither sets you up for success. One leaves you never taking action and one fools you into thinking you’re taking action when actually, it’s a dopamine hit and nothing more.

In my experience, there is a third, better way — creating part-time. But it’s only the folks who are willing to put in the work and not many can stick at it long enough to make a success of it.

I’ve written on the internet for 3 years now. I’ve hit over 90,000 followers in that time and have made a full-time income for myself. Today, I still work full-time but I have options.

Here are my ten commandments for creating part-time. These are all the things I wish I knew when starting.

1. Treat creating like a marathon

When you decide to write on the internet, it can be easy to fill up your to-do list sky-high. Instead of starting small, it can be easy to decide that you are going to start with a bang.

This will accidentally set you up for failure. You don’t want to over-egg things too early. It’s better to start small and build it up rather than overwhelming yourself to find yourself on the verge of quitting by the end of week one.

The best strategy is to start small and build it up. Pretend you are training for a marathon. You wouldn’t go out and run 24 miles tomorrow. You’d train. You’d go for a light jog around your neighborhood. You’d rest.

Start with your equivalent of a light jog — Write a tweet for example.

2. Reduce all expectations

You won’t write your first piece and go viral. It simply isn’t happening. You’d think because you spilled your guts onto the internet, read it five times, and pressed publish, that would be enough.

It’s not. It’s really not. It’s not even close. You have to do that 1000+ times in a row for anything to happen. I know, it sucks.

But it is better to make peace with that now and know that now than to battle through misaligned expectations. You won’t go viral. Even if you do it won’t mean anything. Nothing good happens in year 1.

3. Thou shall not compare

The beauty of everything being online is you can see what everyone is doing. That’s also the downside.

• Will someone start writing 6 months after you and go x10 faster? Yep.
• Will someone make more money than you do? Of course.
• Will you feel like total crap? You bet.

The best approach is to try and minimize comparison. Will you get rid of it altogether? No, of course not. But what you can do is learn to know when you’re feeling low and avoid spaces that will encourage you to compare.

For example, I try not to go on Twitter when I’m feeling low.

4. Do not give in to the pressure

So you’ve started writing online. You’ve been doing a few months and not much is happening. Your colleagues are asking you how it’s going and you don’t want to be that person who’s going nowhere fast.

I’ve been there. 12 months into writing I decided to write a book, I thought writing a book would be a breeze. Lol. Little did I know… Anyway, I spent 8 months writing the thing. I announced the sale of my new book, I was so excited.

Can you guess how many I sold? 27. And everyone at work asked me exactly that. You’d think they wouldn’t. You’d think people wouldn’t ask such blunt questions but they do and what’s funny they expect you to tell thousands of copies. That’s just not how it works. It takes a good while to get good enough for anybody to listen. Don’t give into the pressure of the world.

5. Don’t do what everyone else does

I say no to all podcast requests. I know it sounds trivial and don’t get me wrong, people are not beating down my door (I’ve probably had less than ten offers) but I say no to them for the simple reason. I don’t want to do podcast interviews.

I don’t like the pressure of it. I don’t want to be thinking the whole time ‘do I sound like an idiot’ whilst trying to listen to what the interviewee is asking and coming up with something interesting to say.

Now everyone else would do the opposite. They’d say go on podcasts, it’s great for your brand. But I don’t want to and I think that’s the way you should operate if you're doing this thing part-time on your terms.

6. Write for you

People will tell you if you just write for yourself you’ll never go anywhere. People don’t want selfish writing. Readers are coming along with their own problems to solve. Nobody wants to hear about you.

And they don’t but that doesn’t mean you can’t write for yourself. All my writing is for me. But it’s for me and it’s for you. It’s the things I needed to hear when I was a year into this writing thing, but reflecting on it now helps me.

You can do the same. Make sure you write for yourself, write to yourself, it’s a long old road, youmust get something from it.

7. The game is to get to *this* point

I’ll tell you when you’ve won the game of writing online. You’ve won when the work (the writing) is the reward. Not when you’ve hit your first $10k/month or when you’ve x10'd your followers.

Because it’s never enough. You set one big audacious goal. You hit it. And you just set another one. None of it is ever enough, you just keep reaching for more and more. It’s the way of the world, it’s human nature.

You win when you sit down to write and you love it. You bask in it. You finish up and smile thinking today was a good day. That’s the win. That’s when there’s no stopping you.

8. Your job is to explore your thinking

My brother hates ChatGPT. I get it. His argument is if you outsource the task, and the company wins, the employee doesn’t save any time, they just get something else to do.

I get it. I also think ChatGPT is very bad for one thing, thinking. Outsourcing thinking is a dangerous thing. It’s the one thing you’ve got that’s entirely yours and if you master new ways of thinking you’ll think yourself into a better life.

That’s why writing is so brilliant. You can explore the workings of your mind. You can pause, think, and rewrite. Focus on that. Don’t forget how amazing that is.

9. Work in phases

Writing on the internet will get boring. It’s human nature. Even the fun things get boring after a while. The trick is to mix it up and make it fun. I tend to work in phases. Three-month blocks.

For instance, a few weeks ago I was in an earning phase. I wanted to smash my Black Friday targets and hit new records. Now, as I’m winding down for Christmas, I’m in an audience growth phase. I’m concentrating on writing the best stuff I can, I’m not focused on earning a bunch.

This keeps it interesting. Each phase demands I learn new skills so I can advance to the next phase. It makes it fun, it means my mind is learning new stuff and I’m happier.

10. Celebrate the small wins

You know, I’ve realized pretty much everything in life is about perspective. Let me tell you a quick story. Two summers ago I tried getting into running. There’s an app you can download called Couch to 5k and I was on week 3. It was great. I was enjoying myself.

For the first time in a long time, I’d stuck to an exercise habit. And it was because of one subtle change. Each run, each milestone, each tiny win I celebrated. I found reasons to feel joy.

If I had a good run, I’d feel good about it. I'd celebrate if I wasn’t moaning to myself the entire way. If I managed two runs consecutively, I congratulated myself.

There were tiny wins everywhere I looked. And that made me feel good. Don’t forget the tiny wins.

Writing part-time is hard work. Take it from me, the best thing you can do is be your own coach. Manage your expectations and be kind to yourself. It’s a huge undertaking, it takes time.