How to write 50 screenshot essays

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Jul 16, 2021

3 Things I thought worth sharing with y’all

Why do I write screenshot essays?

Exactly one month ago, I got a call from a friend of mine asking if I know anyone who can write screenshot essays as I do for StoryCards 🙌

I told him that I’ll be going away for a couple of weeks and when I come back I can look into it (I went and lived in a forest for a week and one week in Bangalore for a wedding and relax a bit)

When I came back I needed something exciting and challenging.

I called up my friend and told him that I’ll do it. I accept the challenge of writing essays with less than 250 words (which is extremely hard)

Prado @pradologue

"If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.” - Woodrow Wilson. I got 25 days to write 50 of them 🚀

The only thing I asked him was my freedom. My freedom to write about whatever I want. Obviously, I got paid for it but it was never about the money in the first place.

I wrote 50 screenshot essays in 8 days.

Here’s how I did it:

Step 1: Split the goal.

I told myself that I have to write 25 essays per week. Even though the deadline (they never gave me a deadline. Complete freedom) I made a fake deadline and it was a month 🚀

I split that in half and told myself I’ll finish it in 2 weeks.

It’s a challenge and I wanted to give my best.

2 weeks and 8 working days (I’m trying to adopt 4-day work week)

Step 2: Open archive

I go through everything. My newsletters, videos, blogs, threads, tweets, notes, unshared notes, everything.

The goal is to compress them and simplify things that I’ve already shared.

Why create new content when you already got so many lying around 🙏

I went through everything and wrote 25 topics I want to write about this week.

Week 1 I completed writing 20 essays in 4 days.

Compressing and simplifying stuff that I’ve already written or had in my notes. Seems easy but trust me, it’s much harder.

Step 3: Write & Re-use

The best part is that I’m getting paid to do something I always wanted to do but kept pushing it away. I have so much content lying around that I’d probably end up writing a book out of it.

Here’s how I’ll be re-using them.

I’ll give them copyright to use my content on their apps and website (in return I get paid)
I’ll make a new tab on my website and release these essays one by one every week (new content on the website for a year)
I’ll make videos (probably reels) or just YT videos and share it on video platforms)
I’ll take a screenshot of the essay on my website and share it here as a screenshot essay of the week.
And if possible I’ll add more words and make them bigger blogs or Twitter threads 🔑

All this will be done from just content I’ve already written. This also gives me the freedom to write and create more for weeks and months to come.

Also, this newsletter came from my experience in me writing 50 essays. Content coming out of content

Step 4: Crush the target 🎯

I keep saying this to my clients - “I miss my ex, not my deadlines”

I wanted to use the same kind of energy here too. I crushed my own target of writing 50 essays in 2 weeks and the week is not even over.

I will not be revealing the topics or the content yet.

Make sure you are signed up for this newsletter to get a screenshot essay from the first week of August. You don’t want to miss out on this.

I’m passing on this challenge to you

Write 50 screenshot essays with just 200-250 words or less than 1000 characters in less than a month.

Whosoever finishes the challenge, gets on a call with me and I will give early access to all the 50 essays I’ve written. Also, my client is looking for more writers. If you think you can write 50 of them… maybe you’ll get paid too.

Reply to this mail or DM on Twitter if you accept this challenge.

What to write about?

Write about anything you want. I wrote about family, love, self, health, wisdom, work, etc.

I’ll see you on the other side.

Prado @pradologue

Update:- Completed all 50 essays (in 8 days damn)