Every Sunday evening I write my Experimental Mind newsletter. It contains a curated list of interesting articles I found in the days before. All articles are at the intersection of analytics, experimentation and behavioural science.
I often get asked about my process. So here we go. This is my step-by-step process of writing and publishing a curated newsletter.
Step zero is getting a glass of water and then walk to my desk, power-up my laptop and open the ‘Write newsletter’ checklist in Todoist.
The first actions on this list are ridiculously small, but they are crucial in getting me started, even on days when I don’t feel like it.
Now it’s a matter of doing the work and checking of the boxes:
- Start time tracking ‘Write newsletter’ in Toggl Track
- Start playing a relaxing Spotify playlist, like Focus Modus
- Open Substack and create a new email template
- Review emails in Gmail with label newsletters and save interesting links
- Check Twitter Bookmarks and save any interesting tweets
- Open Raindrop.io and open all links tagged with newsletter (often 10+)
Now comes the real part of writing the newsletter … - Read through the articles and ask myself: is this valuable to include?
- If yes, add it to the Substack newsletter and write a short introduction text
- Review and add newly added jobs to the Experimental Mind job board
- Search my Logseq database and add one to the Quote of the week section
- Search for a cartoon or meme and add it to the Fun of the week section
- Update the running list of events and conferences
- Write an introduction to the newsletter and give it a title
- Schedule publication for 06:30 CET
- Stop the time tracker
That’s it.
Ever since creating this list of actionable steps, I haven’t missed a week.
Whenever you try to do something consistently, design the process to make it easy and fun. And keep optimising it. Then you truly are an Experimental Mind.
