Last week the parish carnival was in town. It’s one of my kids’ favorite summer events so we got the weekly pass, which ended up saving us $120 (seriously, we were there like 60% of the time it was open).

At several points, my kids all wanted to do something different, and since the carnival was confined within church and school property, where I knew a decent percentage of the community, I felt comfortable letting them do their own thing within reason. My oldest was the only one completely out of sight, and she knew where I would be.

I posted up in a spot where I could see the other two, and where I knew to look for my oldest. As time passed, keeping an eye on each of my littles, scanning for my oldest, and trying to maintain conversations, I started to feel overwhelmed.

I guess I should mention at this point that my wife was working three of the four days, so I was mostly flying solo.

This seemed like the best method for me…until the last day. That day, I switched to a different approach: my oldest could still go off on her own if she wanted, but instead of constantly scanning for her, we had regular check-ins at designated spots. I also had some friends keeping an eye out for her. My littles did adjacent attractions. And I made sure we spent more time all together thanks to food. Even though we were there the longest, I felt the least overwhelmed because I wasn’t doing too much.

I decided to put a better system in, and do less. I recently started doing the same thing with my content — and because I know how hard it is to get ahead with content as a solopreneur, I’ll share how you can too.

Paper & Smoke May Go Up in Smoke

One project I was really excited about at the beginning of the year was the companion publication to my yearly theme, The Year of Digital Detox. I figured I would have a podcast and a blog/newsletter, where I would talk about several things:

1. My experience trying to rely on tech less
2. Doing more things in the analog world

As with any project one’s excited about, I started off strong. But after a while, I started publishing less and less. I didn’t find a good groove, and the amount of time I was putting into the articles was disproportionate to the work I should have been doing. The podcast fell off much faster because I was thinking of just doing spoken versions of the articles, but I couldn’t get over how Substack handles podcasts vs. articles.

Another part of it is I’m not playing the “Substack” game. I left most social media to avoid having to play the algorithm and engagement game, and Substack seems to have added that in…and I hate it.

But ultimately, it’s because Paper & Smoke became a completely discrete content property, and everything else I’m producing fits into a content system, making it easier for me.

Effective Repurposing

I feel very strongly that when you repurpose your content, it should be fully yours, and it should fit the format of the platform you’re posting on. But that doesn’t mean fully reinventing the wheel.

My process is generally:

1. Write long-form articles (because writing is thinking).
2. Record a version of those articles for the podcast. Usually I’ll add more conversational asides to those.
3. Take the essence of the article and make it a LinkedIn post. Here is where I’ll use AI to pull out the main point, then evaluate what I wrote to see if it has a good hook and clear CTA.
4. Review the articles for good “show me” candidates that I will turn into videos.

Something I may experiment with is taking the videos and using AI to turn them into written tutorials. But I need to be really, really sure that what it produces isn’t slop.

Those are the platforms where I’m most active, and Paper & Smoke doesn’t really fit into that process because the content is so different. But it’s also too much for me to have both right now.

Knowing When Something Is Too Much

I’m doing a slight pivot in my business to focus more on client work — what we would have called “productized services” in 2017. But it’s really about having a clear system and deliverables for the people I can help.

I already have a good body of content to pull from, and a wealth of ideas in Notion and Obsidian. My focus needs to be:

1. Clarifying my offer to show people why it’s a no-brainer to hire me
2. Working on building my audience, exposure, and reach to generate leads
3. Creating content that serves 1 and 2

I know that, and I’m using the summer to completely optimize for those 3 things. This will look different for you. But if you’re anything like me, I’m guessing you have a few ideas you’re really excited about.

You need to figure out what will best help your business right now, so you can gain the time and space to do the side projects that excite you.

There may be a time in the future where having a separate publication that I grow and monetize — the very model Substack is built for — makes sense. I trust there will be.

But right now I’m trying to do too much — like letting all 3 of my kids be in different places at the carnival and trying to keep an eye on all of them at the same time.