DEV Community: Nityesh Agarwal

Is Medium still a good platform for new writers in 2021? Discussing the pros and cons

Nityesh Agarwal — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 10:02:20 +0000

In the past 4 years, I have published 13 articles on Medium and have got to 3k+ followers.

Here are the key lessons and tips I've learnt:

1. Medium is great place for early writers to reach more people.

I was a nobody on the Internet. And Medium still boosted my articles, allowing me to reach hundreds of thousands of readers.

2. This is especially true if you publish with a popular Medium publication.

A lot of pubs accept articles from new writers and share it with their followers.

I started by publishing with 3 large programming-focused publications and they were a large part of my early success.

3. But it has a big con - you don't own your audience. You are at the whims of the Medium platform.

In the past 2 yrs, they've decided to clamp down the distribution of non-paywalled articles.

This has made my 3k followers worth ~nothing for me. I have no way to reach them.

This is also the reason why some of Medium's biggest publications have exited the platform in the past couple of yrs:

• Signal v. Noise
• FreeCodeCamp
• HackerNoon

(Read: Signal v. Noise exits Medium)

4. You should also beware of publishing for a publication.

When one of the publications that I had published with, decided to leave the Medium platform, they took my most popular articles (and all their SEO value) to their new website - leaving me high and dry.

5. But there is a way to capture the upside (Medium's distribution) while securing yourself from the downside (Medium's whims):

Publish articles on your domain on your own website
Republish them on Medium by setting a canonical URL to your version

Search engines use canonical links to determine and prioritize the ultimate source of content, removing confusion when there are multiple copies of the same document in different locations. Sites that publish an overabundance of duplicate content without indicating a canonical link may be penalized in search engine rankings.

I now publish articles on my own website under my domain - nityesh.com.

But then, I also also republish them on Medium by adding a canonical URL pointing to my website's version of the article.

Nudge your reader's curiosity by writing a better lead for your next article

Nityesh Agarwal — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 11:46:48 +0000

"The most important sentence in any article is the first one.

If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn’t induce him to continue to the third sentence, it’s equally dead.

Of such a progression of sentences, each tugging the reader forward until he is hooked, a writer constructs that fateful unit, the 'lead.'"

On Writing Well by William Zinser

New writers often make the mistake of counting on their readers to stick around. But readers want to know - very soon - what's in it for them.

Therefore, you must capture the reader immediately and make them keep reading.

In this 3-minute lesson, I'll teach you how to grab your reader with your first few paragraphs - a.k.a. - The Lead.

The Hurdle

The same book I quoted above - On Writing Well - speaks more about how to write a lead that compels your reader to read your article:

"[The lead] must cajole him with freshness, or novelty, or paradox, or humor, or surprise, or with an unusual idea, or an interesting fact, or a question. Anything will do, as long as it nudges his curiosity and tugs at his sleeve."

In this lesson, I want to expand upon this advice and leave you with some action items.

The hurdle we're going to cross in this lesson is - How to write a lead that nudges the curiosity of your reader.

How you can overcome the hurdle

Before you dive into doing the work of nudging your reader's curiosity, you need to know who your reader is.

"It's not about the number of people who don't get it. It's about the number of people who do get it."

Tim Ferriss

You cannot capture the attention of everyone who visits your article. And that's a good thing.

You're not trying to convince the world to read what you've written. You're trying to convince the people that match most closely with what you're offerring.

I call these people your "pefect readers".

To overcome the hurdle, the first thing you need to know is this -

Your job is to make sure that your perfect readers don't leave. Your job is not to debate with people who will never get you.

With this in mind, you can do 2 things in your lead to capture your perfect reader:

1. Let her discover why your article is perfect for her

A perfect reader will feel happy to have discovered your article. It solves a problem for her, makes her feel seen and even gives her a sense of belonging. She wants to read your article more than you want her to read it.

But she doesn't know this.

That's where your lead comes in.

You can do this by establishing shared context in the first couple of paragraphs. Here are some ways how:

Surface the main problem you're tackling and explain what’s at stake. Explore the problem's significance.
Pose a question - a question that even the reader has asked but couldn't find the solution to. This is the most exciting question that she will be able to answer after reading your article.
Tease a clever solution to the problem - but don't reveal it entirely. Structure the rest of your article to be the detailed solution.
Use a good, preferably uncommon, quote relevant to your article. A quote that has stuck with you. Scroll up and look at how I started this lesson.(Note: you must already know what the quote is or where exactly you can find it. It doesn't work if you use Google and search for "motivational quotes".)

2. Remove areas of skepticism

Here's the paradox of writing a lead that promises a perfect article for your reader - it may feel too good to be true. Thus, preventing him from reading the article.

So, your lead must also address the most likely areas of skepticism.

Here are some of the most common areas that your reader may be skeptical about:

Irrelevant: He doesn't believe you’ll cover key points he cares about.
Solution: List the points you’ll cover.‍
Untrustworthy: He doesn't believe you're qualified to write about this.
Solution: If you have relevant credentials, share them. If not, then be upfront and tell him you're not an expert. Instead tell him why your experience qualifies you to write about the problem.
Superficial: This is his skepticism of not believing you’ll share things he doesn’t already know.
Solution: Tease your original insights in your introduction.‍
Implausible: He doesn't believe in the central premise of your article.
Solution: Include quotes/tweets from authorities who agree with you.

What not to do

Don't treat it like a fiction novel

Fiction novels often have a frustratingly slow start. Nothing exciting happens for the first few chapters. It's all a build up for the meat in the later half of the story.

New writers often start their articles the same way.

It's an easy way to lose your perfect readers.

It can work only if you have established a lot of credibility with your readers - they believe that something interesting is on their way. But you don't have this when you're starting out. So, the only people who'll end up reading your article are your mom and your best friend.

Your lead is your only way to tell others why they should care about reading some random person's story on the Internet.

This article is a lesson in my email course - Clear Writing, Clear Thinking. I created it to help young programmers learn how to write well so they can boost their careers.

You can sign up to get one 3-minute lesson in your inbox every week for free!

How to write a compelling title for your next DEV article

Nityesh Agarwal — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 12:00:14 +0000

Writing the title of your article is a difficult problem, right?

So, let's do some first principles thinking and start from the basics without any assumptions:

Why do you need a title? What purpose does it serve? Select all that apply:

Introduce the article
Summarise the article
Be a cryptic collection of words whose importance will only be understood when the reader reaches the end of the article
Compel readers to read the article

Go on - make your pick...
...
...
...

Well that was a trick question - the only right answer is 4:

A title's job is not to introduce the article (1). Your lead - the first couple of paragraphs - should do that job.
Its job is not to summarise the article (2). That's the job of the reader if he/she wishes to.
And it's not (3) unless you are a famous writer writing fictional stories.

When writing on the Internet, the title has one job - to intrigue the visitors and convert them to readers.

A good title is one that drives the visitor's curiosity enough to hook them and compel them to read the rest of your article.

Remember, the title is the only part of your article that 100% of the visitors read. If these visitors decide not to read your article, then all your effort of writing the article gets wasted, doesn't it?

The Hurdle

Now we have a challenge:

How to intrigue the visitor without making the title sound like a clickbait?

Because the only thing worse than a bland title is one that sounds like a clickbait:

"You won't believe how FUN it is to stay fit on a budget of $5!"

"If you don't do this, you're headed for trouble!"

You must steer clear of them.

How you can overcome the hurdle

Some prominent bloggers admit to devoting upto 50% of their entire article-writing time just to craft a compelling title.

It's fine if you don't want to go to that extreme. But always write multiple headlines before deciding on your title.

Here are 2 tips to direct your efforts:

1. Learn from the digital marketing folks

Folks in digital marketing are concerned with presenting the business in a way that attracts visitors and maximises the time they spend learning about the product/service.

They write compelling headlines for a living.

Here are some of the lessons that you might hear coming from the mouth of a digital marketing guru:

write the title only you can
general is forgettable; highlight what's unique
readers want outcomes not articles
add a title image to bring life to your article

Keep them in your mind when you are crafting a title for your own article.

2. Play with the medium

It's time you let go of the restrictions placed on you by your middle school teacher:

~~"Keep your title to 5 words or less"~~ - You are completely safe if you stay within 12 words. But use more if you're confident.
~~"No punctuations allowed"~~ - You can use any punctuation marks that you want in your title. Commas? Sure. Dashes? Sure. Colons, paranthesis, periods or question marks? Everything is allowed!
~~"Use a simple phrase for the title"~~ - Your title can be a complex sentence, multiple sentences or even a question.

Remove these safety wheels and play with your titles. Don't be afraid.

In the wild:

Here are the of titles of 3 of my favourite articles on the Internet. Let's dissect them:

Self-learning is difficult and frankly, quite lonely. Here’s how you can make it easier.

This is one of my most popular articles. Notice the use of 2 sentences. The first sentence is a unique take on self-learning. The second one suggests definite outcomes that the reader will get after reading it. Also did you notice - it has 14 words?
Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company

This article from Sahil Lavingia recently crossed a million views. Notice its length - 10 words long. It's also a title that only Sahil could have written from his incredible experience.
When did work-life balance become such a bad thing?

This article from DHH is short but it highlights his unique way of looking at the world of startups. And the title perfectly reflects it. Also notice how it is posed as a question.

Walkthroughs

Let me walk through a couple of examples to show you how to transform your titles:

"Play instead of exercise" -> Not compelling. Give more info in the title.
"Skipping with a jump rope allows you to stay fit without exercising" -> Interesting. Let's play with the medium and craft something memorable.
"Jump rope is the new treadmill - I use it to stay fit indoors without exercising" -> Almost there - just a little too long. Let's do some restructuring.
"I stay fit indoors without exercising - Jump Rope is the new treadmill" -> Perfect!
"Why and how I used Kaggle to start my Machine Learning and Data Science journey and guide it" -> Kind of compelling but too long (18 words). Let's abbreviate "Machine Learning" and do a little restructuring.
"Why and how I used Kaggle to start and guide my ML and Data Science journey" -> I was able to cut 2 words but it's still a mouthful. Also, we should make it about the reader (Remember - readers want outcomes not articles).
"Use Kaggle to start (and guide) your ML and Data Science journey - Why and How" -> At 15 words, this is the title of my second most popular article ever!

Still not sure?

Comment below with your title and your draft/article. I would love to show you how you can transform them like this!

This article is a lesson in my email course - Clear Writing, Clear Thinking. I created this course to help young professionals learn how to write well so they can improve their careers.

You can sign up to get one 3-minute lesson in your inbox every week for free!

10 actionable tips and a simple framework to improve your daily writing

Nityesh Agarwal — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 11:34:43 +0000

10 quick tips on writing well

I recently read the classic guide - On Writing Well by Willian Zinsser.

Here are the 10 most memorable tips that I picked up from that gold mine:

Use short words over longer ones that sound fancy (like "help" over "assistance" and "many" over "numerous").
Vary the length of sentences to create a rhythm. But use short sentences more than long sentences.
Use short paragraphs over longer ones.
Use active verbs over passive verbs - they are easier to visualize.
Start more sentences with strong words (like "But", "Yet", "Still" and "Instead").
Remove useless adverbs and adjectives.
Use contractions like "I'll", "can't" and "won't". But avoid using "I'd" because it can mean both "I had" and "I would".
Remove the qualifiers that dilute your writing (like "a little", "sort of", "kind of", "pretty much").
It's safer to not use semicolons - they are antique.
Remove words that don't serve any purpose (like "I would like to add" and "It is interesting to note").

Remember, writing catches the eye before it reaches the brain.

Unlearn the INTRODUCTION-BODY-CONCLUSION framework

Most of us are still prisoners of this lesson hammered in our head by the composition teachers of our youth:

"INTRODUCTION - Tell them what you are going to tell them.
BODY - Tell them.
CONCLUSION - Then, tell them what you told them."

But think about your readers. Are you repeating because you think they're too dumb to get the point in one go?

Nobody has the time to read an introduction to your main content. Nor does someone have the time to read a compressed summary of the thing you just told them.

Here's a better framework:

Start with a captivating lead. Present a paradox, an unusual idea, some humour, an interesting fact or a question.
Then, keep the momentum. At the end of each sentence, put yourself in the reader's shoes and ask yourself - "Do I want to keep reading this?"
If you have presented all the facts and made the point you wanted to make, look for the nearest exit.

Writing is a skill that's challenging to master. So, don't be too hard on yourself.

Chances are you have not studied it as one of your core competencies. You are a programmer, a designer, a manager or a creator. Therefore, when it comes to writing, all your anxieties, your insecurities and your Imposter Syndrome are justified.

But writing is also far too important a skill to surrender to these monsters.

Especially in the 2020s.

Therefore I created this Clear Writing, Clear Thinking series. Check out previous articles to learn how you can tackle the hurdles you face as a new writer on the Internet.

You can also sign up for the Clear Writing, Clear Thinking email workshop to get everything over email.

Along with the lessons, the workshop also contains small tasks that you can complete to practice what you learned.

I'm giving it all away for free!

What video games teach you about dealing with the Writer's Block

Nityesh Agarwal — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 11:14:11 +0000

All video games share 2 defining traits:

A Goal - The goal is the specific outcome that players will work to achieve. It focuses their attention and continually orients their participation throughout the game. The goal provides players with a sense of purpose.
A Feedback System - The feedback system tells players how close they are to achieving the goal. Real-time feedback serves as a promise to the players that the goal is definitely achievable, and it provides motivation to keep playing.

When implemented well, these traits make doing the hard, challenging work in a game so addictive.

Recently, scientists have extended the importance of these traits to inspire action in the real life as well. Vague goals and delayed feedback often kill our motivation to do challenging work.

Writing well is challenging. Therefore, it's important that you have clear goals and small feedback loops to keep yourself motivated.

In the next 3 minutes, I'll tell you how...

The Hurdles

Level-4 of writing well is about creating a good goal and feedback system of writing articles.

This system will help you avoid the much dreaded - Writer's Block!

Writer's Block is the mythical devil that trips writers and leaves them paralysed and struggling to express themselves.

You should beware of it - it manifests itself as 2 hurdles:

Hurdle #1: Lack of ideas

You want to write something good but you can't think of anything interesting.

Whatever you can think of feels either uninteresting, unimportant or unoriginal. You have no idea where to start. You simply can't focus.

Hurdle #2: Lack of motivation

Sometimes, you have an exciting idea in mind but you are still paralysed by a lack of motivation.

Maybe the idea feels too grand, too important and thus, too daunting for you to work on it. The thought of completing a whole article makes you exhausted before you even start.

Overcoming the hurdles to finish Level-4

Writing a new article from scratch leaves your whims in control of your writing. It leaves you prone to the Writer's Block. You write only when inspiration strikes while other times, you simply sit and tear your hair.

But good writers don't wait for inspiration to strike.

"Great creators work whether they feel like it or not, whether they are in the mood or not, whether they are inspired or not. Success doesn't strike; it accumulates."

How To Fly A Horse by Kevin Ashton

Therefore, you should adopt a process where you can take small steps to succeed all the time. Even on your bad days.

I analysed the creation process of some writers and discovered one thing that was common in all their processes.

An Idea Evolution Funnel

Contrary to what you may think, a lot of successful writers aren't attached to one big idea at a time. Instead, they are always working on evolving a bunch of ideas.

This doesn't show a lack of focus - it's what allows them to be disciplined, consistent and professional.

Upon the birth of a new idea, they put together a quick version that captures the core.
This allows them to put in the real world and get early feedback on it.
Finally, based on the feedback, they select the ones that show promise, double down on them and graduate them to the next stage.

Therefore, I call this flow of ideas an "Idea Evolution Funnel".

How it helps you

Getting in the mindset of working on your Idea Evolution Funnel makes writing feel like playing a video game:

It gives you small goals - Each stage in the funnel is shorter than the next. This means that you don't get exhausted early. Which, in turn, means that you have the energy to take more attempts and only graduate the very promising ideas to the next stage. No wasted efforts.
It gives you small feedback loops - You get to publish at each stage and receive feedback. This gives you motivation to sit down and write instead of procrastinate.

Idea Evolution Funnels of 3 famous Davids

Once you understand the concept of the funnel, you begin seeing it everywhere.

To demonstrate the ubiquity of this funnel, I'm going to pick 3 people who share not just the same name but also the same process of generating ideas.

What's the probability that 3 Davids in the world - who don't know each other - share a common process of creation?

David Perell, the young "Writing Guy", explains his funnel for developing ideas as such:

Share ideas in casual 1-on-1 chats with friends
Share ideas with 100k+ Twitter followers
Share ideas with thousands of weekly newsletter subscribers
Write lengthy blog posts that become an "instant" hit

Here's the funnel for David Sedaris, the humourist:

Jotting interesting things from daily life in a handy pocket notebook
Testing drafts in front of a small live audience
Writing articles in The New Yorker
Compiling them into bestselling books

David Heinemeier Hanson (DHH) along with his co-founder - Jason Fried - has developed a more modern Idea Evolution Funnel:

Tweets
Tweetstorms
Articles on Basecamp's blog (Signal V. Noise)
Bestselling business books

This lesson will get your through Level-4 of writing well. Check out the previous articles in the series to learn about levels 1-3.

In the next few days, I'll publish lessons to take you through the 5th level. So, follow me on Twitter and here to get the updates.

You can also sign up for the Clear Writing, Clear Thinking email workshop to get everything over email.

Along with the lessons, the workshop also contains small tasks that you can complete to practice what you learned.

I'm giving it all away for free!

Good writing is simple writing. And simple writing is not easy.

Nityesh Agarwal — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 10:52:34 +0000

"Simple writing is persuasive. A good argument in five sentences will sway more people than a brilliant argument in a hundred sentences."

Scott Adams

Good writing is simple writing. Simple writing is clear writing. And clear writing is not easy.

"A clear sentence is no accident."

On Writing Well, a classic writing guide

The Hurdles

In order to get good at writing, you must learn how to write simple paragraphs with clear sentences.

This 3-minute lesson will help you get there.

But keep in mind, the path to simplicity is a tricky one.

That's because simplicity hides its own beauty. It's difficult to appreciate the beauty of a simple paragraph because you don't see the hardwork that goes into writing it.

I want to help you navigate simplicity by telling you about 2 hurdles that often trip writers by creating unnecessary complexity in their writing:

HURDLE #1: Not understanding the cost of being thorough

"What if the reader doesn't get my point?"

This anxiety can lead you to be cautiously thorough in your writing.

You run to cover all holes in order to make sure that the reader doesn't miss the point you're trying to make. You explain all your quip remarks and every interpretation of your sentences.

What you don't understand is that by plugging holes so incessantly, you make your writing feel suffocating.

The price of being thorough is losing the attention of your readers.

Reader's willingness to continue reading decreases in proportion to the number of words you use.

And if it's a choice between being thorough and keeping the attention of your reader, you are almost always better off choosing the latter.

HURDLE #2: Unlearning the fanciness of fancy words

The peculiar genius always speaks the complicated tongue. Our culture loves to associate fancy words with exceptional people. From Sherlock Holmes to Tony Stark - a genius's default is incomprehensible garble of long, smart-sounding sentences.

That's why, you associate impressive words with impressive ideas.

You use a long, fancy word when a short, common synonym conveys the same information. You use "assistance" when "help" will do, "facilitate" when "ease" will do, "utilize" when "use" will do, "pertinent" when "relevant" will do.

This creates needless friction for the reader.

What's worse - writing complex sentences using fancy words gives you a false impression that you are saying more than you actually are.

If you truly have something worthwhile to say, you should feel proud of telling it simply. You must resist the impulse of using a 2-dollar word when an everyday word works just fine.

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't know it well enough."

Richard Feynman, the celebrated Nobel prize winning physicist

Overcoming the hurdles

I've got 2 pieces of advice for you:

1. Understand the 80/20 rule of writing

Good writers know what to write. Great writers know what to omit.

Omission is an important but challenging skill. Understanding the 80/20 rule can help.

"You can get 80% of the value by putting in 20% of the effort." - that's the famous 80/20 rule.

There's little data backed evidence to support the rule but I still find it useful because it gives me a good mental model. It makes me focus on intelligently chosing where I put my effort.

Here's an 80/20 rule for writing - you can convey 80% of the information using 20% of the words. You just need to find those 20% words and delete the rest.

Value your reader's time, fanatically - cut down what they need to read.

2. Embrace constraints

Embracing constraints is a powerful way to unconciously improve your writing. It forces you to use simple, clear language that delivers the maximum impact.

"You should write it as if you were paying by the word to write it.”

Neil Gaiman

It works because constraints are advantages in disguise.

Limited resources force you to make do with what you’ve got. There’s no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative.

That's why it's a good idea to introduce arbitrary constraints in your writing like limiting yourself to a smaller number of words than you think you need.

This lesson will get your through Level-3 of writing well.

In the next few days, I'll publish lessons to take you through more levels. So, follow me on Dev.to and on Twitter to get the updates.

You can also sign up for the Clear Writing, Clear Thinking email workshop to get everything over email.

Along with the lessons, the workshop also contains small tasks that you can complete to practice what you learned.

I'm giving it all away for free!

Level 2: Go beyond filling the blank page - A 3-minute guide to editing

Nityesh Agarwal — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 11:03:09 +0000

Last level was about getting comfortable in capturing your thoughts. Your brain dumps.

This lesson is about refining them for your readers.

It's about putting yourself in your reader's shoes and editing what you've written.

The Hurdles of Level-2

Editing your work presents 2 hurdles:

Hurdle #1: Empathising with the reader

When you first write what you're thinking, your brain is focused on the challenge of accurately capturing your thoughts. In that exercise, you write for yourself.

But ultimately, you want to write for the reader. So, your next challenge is to put yourself in the reader's shoes and tweak what you've captured.

Hurdle #2: Understanding the need for rewriting

Schools don’t teach you iteration but iteration is everything outside of school. In school, you would complete an assignment, hand it over and you are done. You don't learn to revisit it.

Jason Fried, Founder & CEO of Basecamp

Schools condition you to think that filling the blank page is your primary task whereas, revising is optional.

But in professional writing, rewriting is where the battle is lost or won!

Overcoming the hurdles to finish Level 2

Rewriting is the essence of writing well.

On Writing Well, a classic writing guide by William Zinser

So, how do you rewrite?

I've realised that it's a 2-step process:

Step 1. Put yourself in your reader's shoes

Put yourself in the shoes of someone you know and try reading what you've written from their eyes:

"Do I want to keep reading this? Is it still interesting or do I get the gist?"
"Am I just assuming that the reader shares my own feelings, prejudices or knowledge?"
"Is this sentence or paragraph necessary for the reader to get the main point? What if I take it out?"

But beware - it can get irritating!

After reading your sentences a bunch of times, you'll know every nook and corner of your paragraphs too well. Then, you may find it difficult to read your words from a new pair of eyes.

I have discovered a few simple tricks that, to my surprise, overcome this problem really well:

Invert colors of the screen
Read on a different device
Read in a different editor

This step will show you the sloppiness in your thinking -

Perhaps your first draft has inconsistent tenses or incorrect punctuation. Or perhaps you weren't yourself and some of your lines are just untrue. Or perhaps it is too unclear, too complicated, too repetitive or too pompous.

Step 2. Fix the sloppiness

Then, it's time to fix all that newly discovered sloppiness.
But we all have a certain equity towards our first drafts - we want to believe that it came out perfect the first time. This makes it emotionally difficult to pull out the chisel and the axe.

That, however, is your job. It goes beyond simply filling the blank page. It's your job to refine your writing in a way that makes it enjoyable for the reader.

You must make sure that each sentence leads to the next one. Make sure that the reader doesn't feel lost. Or bored.

This lesson will get your through Level-2 of writing.

In the next few days, I'll publish lessons to take you through more levels. So, follow me on Dev.to and on Twitter to get the updates.

You can also sign up for the Clear Writing, Clear Thinking email workshop to get everything over email.

Along with the lessons, the workshop also contains small tasks that you can complete to practice what you learned.

I'm giving it all away for free!

Level 1: Don't "just publish your first article". Start small by writing your story.

Nityesh Agarwal — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 10:24:23 +0000

Forget all those writing gurus on the Internet who advise you to put your head down, hit the keyboard, and ignore everything else to publish your first article.

They can't empathise with your anxieties, your insecurities or your Imposter Syndrome.

"How can I write an article if I don't have something to write about?" you ask.

And they reply with well-meaning things like "Write whatever you fancy" or "Don't lose hope".

But it doesn't work.

Truth is - most experts can't remember what it's like to be a beginner. It's not your fault that these answers don't help you when you feel overwhelmed by the monolithic goal of writing your first article.

As a beginner, you need small goals that can give you immediate feedback. Achieving short, increasingly difficult goals builds your momentum and keeps you motivated to reach a higher level.

I have broken down the hurdles of writing well into 5 short, increasingly difficult levels.

You start at Level-0. This lesson will teach you how to advance to Level-1.

The Hurdles of Level-1

The 1st level of learning to write well is about self-confidence.

This level presents 2 hurdles:

Hurdle #1. Finding the confidence to capture your thoughts

"I don't have anything to say."

You have heard people say that you can write about anything you want but you are still paralysed by a lack of ideas. You feel that you are too small or don't have anything important to write about. You doubt that maybe you just aren't interesting like that.

You simply cannot find the confidence to capture your thoughts.

This lack of confidence is rooted in the way they teach you writing at school.

Hurdle #2. Giving yourself permission to write what you want

School has conditioned you to believe that you need permission to write about something - that you must write what the teacher wants. To get good grades, you had to write what was prescribed instead of what you wanted.

Therefore, you haven't realised that you write your best when you write about something that you're excited about.

You aren't alone.

Overcoming the hurdles to finish Level-1

As a beginner, most of us find it difficult to unschool ourselves and confidently capture our internal ideas.
I did too.

The key is to start small and write your own story.

If I could go back 3 years in time to give myself advice on overcoming these hurdles, here's what I would say:

1. Write about things that you can speak about.

What's something that you can talk to a friend about for 10 minutes, nonstop? Think.

And there you have one thing you can write about!

We can often speak at length about things that we care about. It is these topics that make the most passionate writing.

Understand that you have the freedom to follow your natural inclinations.

And, don't worry about being unoriginal.

Remember, if you're completely honest, completely vulnerable, you will never go mainstream.

2. All good writing is narcissistic.

If you're like me, you are afraid of confidently writing your thoughts because you fear coming off as narcissistic.

"How self-obsessed would I look if I wrote down the stupid ideas in my head?"

You know what, this is what good writers do all the time. It works because when people share their experiences with truth, it creates a more empathetic world.

Yes, I'm telling you that writing your "stupid ideas" can improve the world.

But we aren't conditioned to feel comfortable in sharing our thoughts with lots of people. And sadly, there's no instant cure.

Yet, a step in the right direction involves the power of permission. So, I'm giving you the permission to be narcissistic in writing down your thoughts and experiences.

Those golden thoughts you have, are often golden for real.

This lesson advanced you to the 1st level of writing well.

In the next few days, I'll publish lessons to take you through more levels. So, follow me on Dev.to and on Twitter to get the updates.

You can also sign up for the Clear Writing, Clear Thinking email workshop to get everything over email.

Along with the lessons, the workshop also contains small tasks that you can complete to practice what you learned.

I'm giving it all away for free!

You hate writing because no one taught you well - 3 bad teachers we encounter

Nityesh Agarwal — Mon, 25 Jan 2021 11:38:31 +0000

If you're like I was a few years ago, you hate writing.

You've never enjoyed it.

I'm such a passionate advocate for good written skills only because I didn't care for it 4 years ago.

Now, I believe that the only reason we hate writing is because we were never taught well enough.

Here are the 3 types of writing teachers we encounter and how they fail to teach us the right way:

1. Teachers at School

You've probably learnt writing in school.

And yet, so much of what school teaches you is worse than useless. It hurts you in real life. You need to unlearn so much if you want to write meaningful things in real life.

Here are some of the things that school made you do in order to get respectable grades:

You wrote what was prescribed instead of what you wanted. You never realized that you write your best when you write about something that you are excited about.
You followed minimum word limits. Whereas, the real world has maximum word limits - the key is to convey your message in as few words as possible.
You followed rigid formats for "creative" writing. There was a format for essays, formal letters and even, informal letters! Well, guess what? Nobody likes it when you are formulaic and everyone loves being surprised.
You wrote an introductory paragraph before you made your point. Whereas, in the real world, your first sentence needs to grab the reader. Nobody has the time to read an introduction to your main content.

No one told you that too much focus on getting good at school can actually do you harm.

2. Teachers in the online writing courses

Every other writing course on Udemy or platforms like it, promises to make you an author or a professional blogger.

Oh, that dream of writing like a pro and monetising your words!

But wait, most of us don't aspire to be a professional writer. You probably want to be an excellent programmer, a data scientist, a great manager or a successful entrepreneur. Don't you?

By connecting an incredibly useful skill with a dreamy aspiration, those guides miss the point of writing well.
Learning to write well is about learning to convey your thoughts to others.

Explaining things is an art. It is the art of getting your argument across. You cannot hope to learn that in a vaccum. Writing allows you to practice this art.

So good news, writing well can give you a leg up, no matter what profession you are in.

"Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success. Successwise, you’re better off being good at two complementary skills than being excellent at one."

Scott Adams

Writing well is the extra skill that can double your odds of success.

3. New-age writing gurus

Today, there are a lot of inspiring developers who strongly advocate for the benefits of writing online. They advise their followers to start and maintain a blog.

Although well-meaning, these writing gurus only have vague advice for newcomers - like "just publish that first article" and "publish something every week".

That is scary, Level-5 advice.

It fails to empathise with the overwhelmed writing newbies. It does nothing to address hurdles like -

Finding the confidence to capture your thoughts
Unschooling yourself
Empathising with the reader
Understanding the need for rewriting
Understanding the cost of being thorough
Unlearning the fanciness of fancy words
Dealing with a lack of ideas
Dealing with a lack of motivation

No wonder, it doesn't work for a vast majority of newbies - it is meant for people already on the 4th Level!

When you're starting, you need advice on finishing Level 1.

That is exactly what I intend to deliver here.

I am publicly reposting some of the lessons from my writing course that takes you from Level 1 to Level 5, one at a time.

At each level, I will address the hurdles of that level and give you advice on how you can overcome it.

So, follow me to get the notifications as I publish more.

Also, if you would like to get these lessons delivered to your email, one per week, sign up here. I'm giving them away for free!

Programmers have it easy when it comes to writing online - Here's how

Nityesh Agarwal — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 10:33:58 +0000

Now don't get me wrong - writing is hard.

But when it comes to writing for your professional community on the Internet - we, programmers have a HUGE advantage.

The software development community built the Internet and adopted it before anyone else. Therefore, it is the most mature community on the Internet.

By simply being a part of it, you get to enjoy access to 3 systems, unique to this community.

3 Systems that give you 3 unique advantages

Resources: This community likes to share its knowledge for free on the Internet in the form of articles and tutorials.

This gives you access to important resources that allow you to teach yourself.
Demand: This community knows to surf the Internet to look for solutions when they get stuck or when they want to learn something new.

This gives you demand for any tutorial you write - no matter how specific. You can be sure there are developers who'll be looking for it.
Market: Most importantly, this community has built online publications to make it easier for programmers to share their knowledge.

They accept articles from newcomers and share them with their huge audience of hundreds of thousands of developers. This means you don't have to be afraid of shouting into the void.

Reducing barriers of entry

Together these 3 systems of - Resources, Demand and Market - work in your favour to reduce the barrier of entry to writing on the Internet.

No other profession, be it marketing or accounting, enjoys these 3 advantages when it comes to writing online.

The presence of these resources is reason enough for you to be motivated about starting your online writing journey.

So, be a part of something bigger than yourself and contribute to this incredible trend of programmers helping other programmers.

Popular places for new writers to share their programming chops

Here's a list of a few places that accept contributions from beginners and share it with their huge follower bases (links take you to their contributing guidelines) -

Medium publications:

Other places:

As a new writer, you can piggyback off of their large audience to start creating a name for yourself.

Writing online clearly has huge benefits on the careers of new programmers.

Yet, writing skills not taught in most CS courses and bootcamps. There are no good online courses or tutorials for codenewbies to learn how to write well.

I plan to change that.

I'm going to publish a series of articles in the Codenewbie Community to help learners who are in the same place as I was a few years ago. I'll share quick practical lessons help you get started with writing on the Internet.

This article is the 2nd one in the series.

So, follow me to get the notifications as I publish more.

Also, if you would like to get these lessons delivered to your email, one per week, sign up here.

Writing Well: a must-have skill that no one teaches software developers

Nityesh Agarwal — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 11:47:46 +0000

I started writing because the generous community of programmers had helped me by sharing their knowledge freely over the Internet. I wanted to contribute to this incredible trend so I could be a part of something bigger than myself.

Little did I know that it'll be me who gets benefitted the most by pursuing this noble cause.

3 years of writing on the Internet has done more for my career than what 4 years of college education did.

I published 14 articles in the past 3 years while I was teaching myself programming, data science and machine learning. These have allowed me to

reach hundreds of thousands of readers around the world,
make valuable connections,
get a unique job opportunity,
work with people from multiple countries and
make more money than I hoped for.

In this article, I'll tell you why being a good writer can take your career to the next level and how you can start your writing journey as a software developer.

// Detect dark theme var iframe = document.getElementById('tweet-1325681254021255168-709'); if (document.body.className.includes('dark-theme')) { iframe.src = "https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1325681254021255168&theme=dark" }

The Writing Revolution

We are living through a Writing Revolution where good writing skills can have an immense impact on the life of every ambitious software developer.

In the past 30 years, our world has changed in a fundamental way - Internet has demolished the cost of distributing information.

"It turns days into minutes," Andrew Grove, the legendary CEO of Intel, commented on the arrival of email. "A lot more people know what's going on than did before, and they know it a lot faster than they used to."

Today we have email, Slack, Notion, Github, Twitter, Facebook and a plethora of Internet apps focused on written communication.

For 200, 000 years of human history, speaking and listening was the primary mode of communication. But in the past 30 years, reading and writing has overtaken it as the primary mode of communication.

You are now living in the early years of a Writing Revolution that has changed the way humans communicate with each other.

Traditional education, however, has failed to recognise this human-scale revolution - good writing tuitions are still reserved for students of the liberal arts.

You cannot wait for traditional education to catch up when being a good writer can benefit your career now.

Especially, with the remote-working revolution underway.

The Remote-Working Revolution

Some of the biggest companies of our generation like Facebook, Twitter and Shopify have recently announced a permanent transition to remote working. Inevitably, they have paved the path for entire industries to follow.

Therefore, it's highly likely that your next company will be working remotely.

In remote settings, with little face-to-face interaction, written communication becomes the key.

Your competitive advantage in a tough job market

Work-from-home means that the competitors for your next job are not just from your city, they are from your entire country and potentially the whole world. Add economic depression and rock bottom unemployment rates to the mix, and you have a saturated job market.

You need to find a way to stand out.

Being a good writer will help you.

When deciding between a few candidates to fill a position, companies like Basecamp hire the better writer. People of Basecamp have been working remotely for more than 20 years and great writing is a prerequisite for every single position they have.

Being a good writer boosts the arc of your entire career

Being a good writer helps you get a new job. A better job.

But more importantly, it helps you do your everyday work better and therefore, changes the arc of your entire career!

Here are 3 ways it boosts your career:

1. Grabbing the valuable attention of people around you

You need your peers to read that awesome idea you propose.
You need your subordinates to pay attention to you.
You need hiring managers to read your next job application.
You need interesting people, that you admire, to read and answer your cold emails.
You need your connections on LinkedIn or Twitter to pay attention to your posts - we all know, better connections mean better opportunities.

Yet, you can't rely on the awesomeness of your ideas to grab their attention. Everyone has loads of them.

What differentiates successful people is their ability to convey their ideas in ways that makes people want to pay attention.

"Being a good writer is about more than writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. Great writers know how to communicate. They make things easy to understand. They can put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They know what to omit."

David Heinemeier Hanson and Jason Fried, founders of Basecamp

2. Finding new career opportunities

Writing on the Internet can advance your career. A well-written article, published on the Internet, works 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to find new opportunities for you!

Therefore, your blog is like a resume, only better.

// Detect dark theme var iframe = document.getElementById('tweet-1290854152277389313-415'); if (document.body.className.includes('dark-theme')) { iframe.src = "https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1290854152277389313&theme=dark" }

Writing a useful article is the quickest way to establish yourself as an expert in that field. No degrees required.

Two years ago, I wrote an article to help people get started with reading Deep Learning research papers. It still fetches me LinkedIn connections from PhDs in universities around the world. Funny thing is that I have read only one research paper in my life - when I wrote the article!

"By making it easy for people to find you online, you’ll create a vehicle for serendipity."

David Perell, creator of the popular course Write of Passage

Good online presence allows you to connect with like-minded people around the world, who you would never be able to meet in real life. And meaningful social connections are often the source of surreal career opportunities.

3. Improving your thinking

"You don’t just write to share what you think. You write to discover what you think in the first place."

Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, the company behind Wordpress

Compressing your thoughts into the written word removes noise from your thoughts. Clear writing induces clear thinking.

This is why Jeff Bezos makes his executives prepare 6-page narratives instead of 20-slide Powerpoint before any meeting. Bezos believes that Powerpoint presentations conceal lazy thinking. Instead, he wants his employees to think deeply and take the time to express their thoughts cogently.

I'm often amazed to see how writing an idea leaves me with a better version of the idea itself. It makes me realise how sloppy my thinking usually is.

Writing clearly can have the same effect on your thinking too.

Despite all this, writing is not taught in most CS courses and bootcamps. There are no good courses or tutorials for coders to learn how to write well.

I plan to change that.

I'm going to publish a series of articles here on Dev.to to help learners who are in the same place as I was a few years ago. I'll share quick practical lessons help you get started with writing on the Internet.

This article is the first one in the series. So, follow me to get the notifications.

Also, if you would like to get these lessons delivered to your email, one per week, sign up here.

You should expect "equal pay for equal work" at your new remote job

Nityesh Agarwal — Wed, 24 Jun 2020 07:53:33 +0000

Tough questions to ask your remote employer who gives you cost of living based compensation and some thoughts on how remote compensation will work in the future

Your star designer out in the sticks is just as valuable (maybe more so) to the team as those working from the big-city home office. Make sure she feels that way.

By the same token, as a remote worker, you shouldn’t let employers get away with paying you less just because you live in a cheaper city. “Equal pay for equal work” might be a dusty slogan, but it works for a reason. If with regard to compensation you accept being treated as a second-class worker based on location, you’re opening the door to being treated poorly on other matters as well.

-- Remote by David Heinemeir Hanson and Jason Fried

Almost all the knowledge jobs have become work-from-home in this sudden pandemic. Societies, companies, employees and job-seekers - all have been caught in this sudden shift in the way of working.

I am writing this for the new job-seekers. It's a tough market out there but you should still expect "equal pay for equal work" at whatever remote company you work for in the future. Most of us will probably not get it anytime soon but I believe that there's value in setting expectations.

Tough questions against Cost Of Living (COL) based adjustments

Big companies like Twitter, Shopify and Facebook are adopting remote work for good. It's inevitable that they have paved the path for other companies to follow suit.

But along with this they might also make location based compensation the norm.

DHH

@dhh

Wait what? Facebook is seriously going to dunk someone's salary if they move? That's barbaric. twitter.com/pedrovalesanto…

18:56 PM - 21 May 2020

Pedro dos Santos @pedrovalesantos
@dhh Scary that Zuck along with the announcement said that salaries will be adjusted if people relocate. Hopefully that doesn't become the norm.

Below I present some tough questions that you can ask your employer who has adopted this practice.

#1. Opening the doors to discrimination at work

If you don't live in the highest wage city of the world, you might just have a peer at the company who lives in a more expensive city than you. Are you ready to be treated as a second-class employee just because of the geography that you live in?

How will you know that all the lousy work doesn't get passed on to you because it is justified in terms of 'returns on investment'?

When your manager has the final say, isn't it possible that he distributes work so that a low-risk, low-impact project is assigned to you while your "more expensive" peers get assigned the high-risk, high impact one?

Your company: "We have a policy that says we won't discriminate based on the employee's location."

That's all well and good but what about the silent bias.

How can you be sure that your extremely well-meaning manager wasn't thinking about it when he assigns you a project that you don't like? Wouldn't he be justified in terms of returns of investment? Can you be sure that he won't?

#2. Differences in Government spending across countries

Public spending enables governments to produce and purchase goods and services, in order to fulfil their objectives – such as the provision of public goods or the redistribution of resources - like social protection, education and healthcare.

Recent data on public spending reveals substantial cross-country heterogeneity. Relative to low-income countries, government expenditure in high-income countries tends to be much larger (both in per capita terms, and as share of GDP), and it also tends to be more focused on social protection.

In India, the government spends about 1,700 US dollars per head (adjusted based on Purchasing Power Parity) in the year 2015; while in countries such as Norway, that figure is over 30,000 US dollars (adjusted based on PPP) and in USA it is over 21,000 USD.

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/government-spending

This lack of government spending is ultimately passed on to the citizens who need to pay for it with their own money, thus reflecting it in their costs of living.

An impotent public schooling system means that employees need to send their children to expensive private schools. A broken public hospital infracture means that people need to avail the expensive private hospitals for their healthcare. And a lot of these private enterprises are not above profiteering in times of crises.

How does cost of living based compensation take into account the differences in government spending accross countries? Shouldn't the employees be compensated for this difference?

#3. Relocations get complicated, at best and outright unfair, at worst

What happens if I relocate to a lower paid region? Will I be compensated differently?

Companies like GitLab are pretty transparent about this. "Yes, you take a pay cut."

But what happens if I was living in a cheap city and decide to move to a more expensive one?

I asked the CEO of Gitlab. Here's what he replied -

Sid Sijbrandij

@sytses

@nityeshaga @dhh @gitlab I don’t remember ever declining such a request.

15:41 PM - 23 May 2020

Coming from India, I know for a fact that a lot of people in lower-income countries will jump at this opportunity.

What happens if I choose to be a digital nomad changing cities every couple of months?

What if I choose to get an official address in some expensive city while I actually live in the suburbs?

#4: Loose definition of "Cost of Living"

The most common arguement against "equal pay for equal work" for remote employees is the difference in housing prices across cities/countries.

Sriram Krishnan

@sriramk

@44 But those COL adjustments are meant to reflect the local reality no (the house I live in here in SF will a lot cheaper in the middle of nowhere )? Assuming you have the same pool of money to pay people, how do you make sure people have the same experience regardless of place?

18:43 PM - 21 May 2020

So, how do you define the "Cost of Living"?

Is it just the housing prices? And groceries? Restaurant bills, maybe?

That seems incomplete. It is only a small percentage of a lot of people's actual costs of living.

What about living with an elderly parent?

What about living a single life vs. being married? For that matter, how about having a stay-at-home spouse vs. having a spouse in a high-paying job?

What about the number of kids one has?

Number of dogs? Cats?

What's included in "Cost of Living"?

More importantly, who defines it? Should it be the employee who is actually incurring these costs? Or should it be the employer who is paying the employee?

Blair Reeves

@blairreeves

If you’re going to pay people differentially based on where they choose to live, why not pay them differentially based on whether they have kids, too?

These little monsters are expensive, after all. I’ve got costs!

17:51 PM - 21 May 2020

Tough questions against "equal pay for equal work" and my answers to them

There are some really tough questions on the other side as well. I have been thinking about them for a while now. I'll take a stab at composing a reply to them.

"Isn't it against market economics to pay people, living in different cities of the world, the same money?"

On the contrary, I believe that equal pay for equal work is the default market state.

In fact, we already see it in a lot of places -

Freelancers have been living this way for a long time now - Create a name for yourself and work for clients in the US from a beach in Bali.
When you start a company, your customers pay you money regardless of where you live (unless your product's value is market-specific).
Writing a book, teaching an online course, paid newsletters and other forms of passive income don't earn the creator a subsidised income based on the city that she lives in.

This is because we, as consumers, pay for the value that we get regardless of the gender, age or geography of the individual providing the value.

So, free markets pay equally for equal work, unless the work’s intrinsic value is dependent on geography (like a local news media).

And it makes sense. Physically accessing the internet from a different location has no effect on the value that you can create.

"Wouldn't this cause lots of jobs to go out of the US?"

I'll quote Blair Reeves here:

"If there are people elsewhere who can do a given job perfectly well for less compensation expense, it obviously makes business sense to let them. I can clearly understand why this would freak out a Facebook engineer making half a million a year in Menlo Park."

"After all, folks in Hyderabad and Kiev and Lagos are just as smart too and could do most of these jobs. Literally since the 1990s, we’ve heard dark warnings that the software development industry was on the verge of offshoring all engineering roles. (Seriously, this was considered a big problem in the late 90s.) But not only has it not happened, but demand for U.S. engineers and other knowledge workers has grown considerably. I think this will continue to be the case. I think there’s something about building products aimed largely at American audiences and companies that makes American employees valuable."

All of this being said, I do believe that this time, the fear might not be misplaced. I see it as a real threat to the US and Silicon Valley, in particular.

Michael

@mmay3r

Remote international work is a bigger threat to the western middle class than automation.

05:08 AM - 18 Jun 2020

But I believe that this will be a net good for everyone in the long term. There's potential for a lot value in this future if you consider how this will increase the competition between cities, countries and governments.

Quoting Stratechery's Ben Thompson here:

[sic] "... this idea of the more that tech spreads out and is less San Francisco-centric, the more there’s driving competition between cities and between politicians and spreading the influence, I think we have a very positive sort of impact. Why can San Francisco be so poorly run? Well, all these tech companies are there. Well, there’s no competition. They’re not going anywhere. And so there’s just a general state of annoyance with each other and no actual change."

Future of remote work, perhaps?

“Long term,” said Matt Mullenweg, “I think market forces and the mobility of talent will force employers to stop discriminating on the basis of geography for geographically agnostic roles.” He thinks that for “moral and competitive reasons, companies will move toward globally fair compensation over time with roles that can be done from anywhere.”

-- How Automattic pays its remote employees across different geographies, Techcrunch

Compensation that does not depend upon the city that you choose to work in - will soon become a defining factor for a remote company's ability to attract talent in a global market. Best employees will flock to competitors that do not discriminate against them because of their choice of living.

In the (not so distant?) future, I suspect that remote work will become the norm for all knowledge workers. There will be a global shift in the way we manage human capital in the economy.

Now is the time for remote companies to get a leg up on this imminent future by adopting a non-discriminatory compensation policy.

Not every company will be able to afford to offer Silicon Valley market rates, just like not every company can afford to be in Silicon Valley today. Their compensation will be standardised and aligned to a particular tier:

Tier-1 market (SV) rate offers top 10%
Example - Basecamp. Basecamp's founders (quoted at the beginning of this article) were probably the first proponents of "equal work, equal pay" in the context of remote work. They pay everyone at their company in the 90th percentile, or top 10%, of the San Francisco market rates, regardless of their role or where they live.
Tier-2 market (NY, Boston) rate - top 10-25%
Example - Help Scout. It has accepted that it's not financially viable for it to compete for talent in the Silicon Valley region and thus it aligns its employee compensation with second-tier markets like Boston, New York and Seattle.
Tier-n market (India) rate offers the outsourcing rates
There will be other market tiers that standardise their pay to a particular location to capture the talent over there. The last tiers will capture the cheapest labour markets.

The most talented employees will want to work for Tier-1 companies, just as ambitious tech people around the world want to go to Silicon Valley today. Ability to work remotely will simply lower the barrier of entry for people to be able to realise their full-potential.

A great engineer from a Tier-5 market in Nigeria will be able to move up to a Tier-2 aligning company without comprising on her family, friends, house or city!

All companies will adopt "Equal pay for equal work". Once again!

DEV Community: Nityesh Agarwal

Is Medium still a good platform for new writers in 2021? Discussing the pros and cons

1. Medium is great place for early writers to reach more people.

2. This is especially true if you publish with a popular Medium publication.

3. But it has a big con - you don't own your audience. You are at the whims of the Medium platform.

4. You should also beware of publishing for a publication.

5. But there is a way to capture the upside (Medium's distribution) while securing yourself from the downside (Medium's whims):

Nudge your reader's curiosity by writing a better lead for your next article

The Hurdle

How you can overcome the hurdle

1. Let her discover why your article is perfect for her

2. Remove areas of skepticism

What not to do

Don't treat it like a fiction novel

How to write a compelling title for your next DEV article

The Hurdle

How you can overcome the hurdle

1. Learn from the digital marketing folks

2. Play with the medium

In the wild:

Walkthroughs

10 actionable tips and a simple framework to improve your daily writing

10 quick tips on writing well

Unlearn the INTRODUCTION-BODY-CONCLUSION framework

What video games teach you about dealing with the Writer's Block

The Hurdles

Hurdle #1: Lack of ideas

Hurdle #2: Lack of motivation

Overcoming the hurdles to finish Level-4

An Idea Evolution Funnel

How it helps you

Idea Evolution Funnels of 3 famous Davids

Good writing is simple writing. And simple writing is not easy.

The Hurdles

HURDLE #1: Not understanding the cost of being thorough

HURDLE #2: Unlearning the fanciness of fancy words

Overcoming the hurdles

1. Understand the 80/20 rule of writing

2. Embrace constraints

Level 2: Go beyond filling the blank page - A 3-minute guide to editing

The Hurdles of Level-2

Hurdle #1: Empathising with the reader

Hurdle #2: Understanding the need for rewriting

Overcoming the hurdles to finish Level 2

Step 1. Put yourself in your reader's shoes

Step 2. Fix the sloppiness

Level 1: Don't "just publish your first article". Start small by writing your story.

The Hurdles of Level-1

Hurdle #1. Finding the confidence to capture your thoughts

Hurdle #2. Giving yourself permission to write what you want

Overcoming the hurdles to finish Level-1

1. Write about things that you can speak about.

2. All good writing is narcissistic.

You hate writing because no one taught you well - 3 bad teachers we encounter

1. Teachers at School

2. Teachers in the online writing courses

3. New-age writing gurus

Programmers have it easy when it comes to writing online - Here's how

3 Systems that give you 3 unique advantages

Reducing barriers of entry

Popular places for new writers to share their programming chops

Writing Well: a must-have skill that no one teaches software developers

The Writing Revolution

The Remote-Working Revolution

Your competitive advantage in a tough job market

Being a good writer boosts the arc of your entire career

You should expect "equal pay for equal work" at your new remote job

Tough questions to ask your remote employer who gives you cost of living based compensation and some thoughts on how remote compensation will work in the future

Tough questions against Cost Of Living (COL) based adjustments

#1. Opening the doors to discrimination at work

#2. Differences in Government spending across countries

#3. Relocations get complicated, at best and outright unfair, at worst

#4: Loose definition of "Cost of Living"

Other tough questions

Tough questions against "equal pay for equal work" and my answers to them

"Isn't it against market economics to pay people, living in different cities of the world, the same money?"

"Wouldn't this cause lots of jobs to go out of the US?"

Future of remote work, perhaps?