At the end of June 2009, I got an idea: I should write an ebook.
My writing and editing business was less than a year old. I had never written anything that resembled a book. The notion should have felt absurd.
It didn’t. It felt like the next step I’d been avoiding by calling it “someday.”
So on July 1, I set a plan to write, design, and self-publish an ebook on my website by September 15. Seventy-seven days. No book experience. No publisher. No safety net.
I’m going to share that plan, not because it was brilliant, but because it was simple enough to actually follow. And a plan you follow will always outperform a plan you admire.
Pick the Right Scope, Not the Grandest Topic
Writing an ebook could easily take two years. Or five. (We’ve all met someone who’s been “writing a book” since the Obama administration.) But I needed to ship, not to make literature.
The ebook would serve three immediate purposes: establish my authority as a writer and editor, build my email list, and strengthen my author bio when I pitched guest posts. That last one was especially urgent, I didn’t even have my own blog yet.
So I chose a narrow, practical topic: a short guide to avoiding common writing mistakes. Not a magnum opus. Not a manifesto. A tool.
If I’d chosen a more complex topic, the quality would have suffered or I wouldn’t have made the September 15 deadline. Probably both.
This is the Scope Principle: choose the project you can actually finish, not the one that sounds most impressive at dinner parties. You can always write the bigger book later. But you can’t write the bigger book until you’ve proven to yourself that you can finish something.
Set Hard Deadlines (and Mean Them)
On July 1, I carved these into my calendar:
- August 1: Complete draft
- August 15: Complete editing
- September 1: Complete design
- September 8: Complete guest posts for promotion
- September 15: Launch ebook
Looking back, my promotion strategy was weak and I knew it. That nervousness was warranted. But my goal was to produce, to cross the finish line of completion and learn what it felt like to ship something.
And the project taught me countless lessons about writing, content creation, and marketing that I could apply to everything that came after. Lessons you only learn by doing the thing you’re not quite ready for.
If you wait until you feel confident about every aspect of a project before you start, you’ll never start. And you’ll never learn.
Measure Weekly, Not Daily
After marking my deadlines, I outlined weekly goals. I made daily to-do lists to keep me on track, but I measured progress at the end of each week.
Daily goals are often too rigid for creative work. You don’t write 500 words every single day. Some days you write 1,500. Some days you write 30 and delete all of them. Weekly measurement gives you the flexibility to absorb bad days without panicking.
If you can form a support group with other entrepreneurs, do it. If you’re more of a lone wolf (guilty), adopt a no-excuses posture: treat your deadlines like your rent. Not optional.
But recognize that every project has surprises. If a week doesn’t go as planned, reschedule the unfinished tasks. A flexible attitude each week and iron discipline on the final deadline are not contradictions. They’re partners.
What I Got Wrong
Although I don’t regret investing in that ebook, there was a significant gap in my plan: I didn’t have a blog. My website was a static brochure describing my services. I’d been guest posting elsewhere, building other people’s audiences while neglecting my own.
Without a blog, I missed countless opportunities to build my audience and my business.
About a year later I got serious about regular blogging, and it was a genuine advantage to already have the ebook waiting for new readers. But I’d learned the lesson: your content needs a home, not just a flyer.
The Machine That Keeps Running
Years later, when I decided to start making videos, I recognized the familiar trap. A video project could take a year. Or two. Or five, if I let it.
So I deployed the same system. Hard deadlines. Weekly goals. Calm persistence through the inevitable rough patches. Within three months, I had a YouTube channel up and running, with new content publishing weekly.
The plan hasn’t changed because it doesn’t need to. It works because it respects a truth most creative people resist: the deadline is the architecture, not the enemy.
Your Turn
Think about where you could be a year from now if you started today. Not “started planning.” Started making. Because once you finish that project, you’ll carry the experience and confidence into the next one. And the next one after that.
The difference between people who have ideas and people who have finished work isn’t talent. It’s a deadline they actually respected.
Pick your project. Set your dates. Give yourself 90 days. And on the other side of those 90 days, you’ll be someone who ships, which is a different species entirely from someone who plans to ship.