Use this Simple Review Model to Iterate (and Improve) Your Writing

Plus mini-video-masterclass

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Iteration has been the cornerstone of my creator strategy for the last 3 years. It’s the process I use in my day job to iterate products and the model I always rely on.

Today, I wanted to walk you through how I apply iterative thinking to my writing process to drive better and better results.

Let’s dive in. 👇

Building fences & getting it wrong

This weekend, on top of sorting out my greenhouse, I was working on the garden fence. Disclaimer, I’ve never built a fence before but alas, I had to learn (and quickly) —my veg beds needed filling and my dogs kept stomping on all my little seedlings.

A few weeks ago, I planted some radishes in the beds (without said fence). I kid you not, after two days, bye-bye radishes. Like, totally disappeared.

I’d been growing those little seedlings for 2-3 weeks, heartbreaking.

Fence I needed, and so I ordered a load of wood and got to work. Turns out, building a fence is harder than I thought, but (finally) the posts were in, the rails were in, all I had to do was nail some slats in the right place, and jobs a good ’un as we say here.

So I started the process. I had a pocket full of nails, a hammer, and the slats. First job: to work out how big to make the gap — so I used a slat to measure the gap. It went — slat, slat-sized-gap, slat.

But I couldn’t hold the slat in place whilst I got the hammer and level. Not a bother, I grabbed a clamp. I clamped the slat in place, levelled the slat, and hammered it in.

As I hammered, the slat leaning against the fence fell. So I made a mental note, next time, when I measured the gap, I made sure to put the slat on the floor.

I also realised that hammering the top of the slat moved the bottom of the slat (because there was no clamp on the bottom).

Next slat, I hammered from the bottom, but this time I’d put the clamp on the floor, so I was stretched to reach it. Next slat, I popped it on the top rail to hold it in place (no more stretching).

I also realised I was stretching the clamp out in its entirety just to push it all the way back in, it was probably only taking 0.2 of a second, but still, it felt like a waste of time.

So I stopped doing that, and just opened it enough to pop it on and off quickly.

Then I noticed the way I was hammering the nails— the angle at which I was holding the hammer, the force I swung with, and how high up the hammer I held. When I held it lower down the handle, let the heaviest part (the head) hang down, and I swung with my arm (not just my wrist) the nail went it way quicker.

By the end of about 10 slats, I’d ironed out my process very nicely.

The result was that the rest of the slats went in like a dream, the process was effective and efficient, and I’d got rid of 90% of the waste.

This might seem completely off topic and rather random, but the application is relevant to writing. More now than ever. The method is simple:

• Step 1: Do the thing

• Step 2: Listen for signals

• Step 3: Measure and assess

• Step 4: Review and hypothesise

• Step 5: Isolate the variable and test

Step 2: Application

Let’s apply each bit to the writing process to bring it to life.

Step 1: Do the thing

You’ll never know how to optimize the system and increase efficiency in the process if you don’t go through the process yourself. The best way to get familiar with the process is to go through the process bit by bit, at first just to learn. With writing, that means (especially if you’re starting from scratch) just start typing. Go through the process, idea, write, edit, and publish.

Step 2: Listen for signals

Ask yourself as you go through the writing process, what feels unusually difficult? Have you spent ages on the idea? Have you got stuck trying to structure your thinking? Have you spent a lifetime going back and forth in the editing stage? Which bit of it feels really quite difficult? Those are your signals.

Step 3: Measure and assess

If you write a lot, you’ll know what you’re average is, or a least you’ll get a sense for what typically happens in a given week and month. If you’re new to this, you’ll have to write a few posts on a specific platform until you have an average. My recommendation, if you’re new, write 7 pieces (get a week’s worth of data), get an average, and then you’ll know what typical response and engagement you get.

Step 4: Review and hypothesise

The next step is to review what’s working. You do that by looking at your posts and figuring out which one or two posts are sticking out above the rest. If there’s no obvious data point, either write more stuff or change the word ‘obvious’ to ‘slightly better’. Sometimes you’ll have an out-and-out winner, sometimes one post will be marginally better. Either way, both are useful.

Then it’s your job to interrogate why that happened. Like I did with the fence slats, it’s about understanding why something did better, giving it a critical eye, and asking questions. Making some hypotheses like:

• I think this piece did better because I asked a question in the subject line

• I think this piece did better because I added stats in the introduction

And then we move on to step 5.

Step 5: Isolate and test

Now we’ve made those hypotheses, the game is to test them. So I will list out what I think is the reason things do well, like I’ve done before, and then I will test that. For the example above, I will make sure the next newsletter has a question in the subject line, or I’ll make sure there are stats in the introduction. Then I’ll set some metrics around what good looks like, for example:

• 45% open rate

• 2 new paid subscribers

And then I will review the data the following day.

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This masterclass is a snapshot of one of the lessons in the Medium Blueprint. Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help:

• The Medium Blueprint — used by over 600+ writers, the exact strategy I used to go from 0 to 90,000 followers on Medium.

• The Part-Time Newsletter School — used by over 100 creators, everything I’ve learned from my MSc in behavioural science, and application of my product-led strategy to turn subscribers into paying customers.

PS, if you join the founder member of this newsletter, you get both as part of your subscription :)

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Step 3: The lesson

More and more, I learn that most things can be boiled down to a science. Content is no different. People will tell you what they like through their actions and behaviours, it’s your job to pay attention and see what is resonating.

The strategy is simple: write and publish, then listen and iterate.

You make good decisions on what to iterate by reviewing what is working and stress-testing why that is working.

Step 4: The review writing mini-video masterclass

Here’s a mini video masterclass of me explaining *exactly* this concept with my writing on Medium. It’s the model and system I use for Medium and for writing this newsletter.