Written by Derek Sivers

You're posting for them, not you. If it's just for you, you can keep it in your diary. So whatever goes out into the world has to be worth taking someone's time.

#1 = Ask, "What is surprising about this?"

If it's not surprising, then you're not telling them anything they don't already know.

#2 = Ask, "Are all of these words necessary?"

Then cut out every un-necessary word. I often pay translators to translate my blog posts to other languages, so I really am paying by the word.

Great way to make yourself succinct:

• Drop the tangents and disclaimers.
• Save a side point for another post.
• Having one point per post will cut through the attention fog better than a big multi-faceted rambling.

#3 = Ask, "How will this help them?"

Are you just venting? Or is this something constructive and actionable that people can use to improve their life in some way?

Inspiration

Use any of these questions as inspiration to keep developing your idea before posting it to the world. If it's not surprising yet, look for the surprising element. Think of a way that this idea can be really helpful to people. Then chop out all the unnecessary words.

Derek Sivers created CD Baby in 1998. It became the largest seller of independent music online, with $100M in sales for 150,000 musicians.

Visit his website: sivers.org