How do you approach your next writing task?

It’s certain everyone has their own direction, yet I tend to approach it similarly whether it is a blog post, a home page, a presentation deck, or more.

In short, I research the subject theme per my audience, compile the information into one source, consider my specific target (from my audience), write it all, and then edit.

Research: read, watch, listen, ask and keep digging to gather more information. Your knowledge, understanding, proficiency, and the actual task at hand will determine how much info you require.

Compile: begin listing and gathering valuable information, notes, thoughts, ideas, statements, phrases, keywords, and more into one document to paint you a bigger (yet rather messy) picture of your content data.

Consider: take a look at who your target audience truly is, what you want to achieve with this task, and what type of message you’re looking to produce.

Write and edit: from your compiled document, list of items, or brain dump, avoid perfectionism and put together a very rough draft. Write it all, organize, and edit, and then edit some more.

This process could be extremely short or take forever, but just get started and then get better; it is simply an approach I use to put it all on paper, and then I work to fine-tune the message, copy, and content.