I kept putting off the most essential work

A little voice in a distant, dark cavern in my brain was calling out to me again.

It said, as it has repeatedly for more than a decade:

‘Hey Alex, when are you going to write more fiction? This is your dream, isn’t it?’

I used to leave fiction writing until the end of the day.

By then, I was tired, distracted, and happy to push it to tomorrow. Tomorrow became next week, and next week became next year.

I did this for a decade.

The thing I cared about most got the least priority. I treated it like a dessert when it should have been the main course.

Now, fiction goes first. This means at least an hour in the morning before email, before newsletters, coaching, and before anything that feels ‘urgent’ but isn't.

I now see how the work I’ll regret not doing is the work that's easiest to defer.

Dream work feels too fun to prioritise, too risky, and too indulgent. There's always something more sensible demanding your attention.

This is the main reason I held off writing for so long. It just didn’t seem important enough. I had bills to pay and emails like this to write.

I’ve been honouring the practical side of me for a long time.

But I’ve been neglecting the truly creative part of me that doesn’t want to see me skip the dream before I die.

Many do this.

We push the meaningful stuff to ‘later’ when we'll have more time, more energy, more certainty.

But later never comes with those things attached. I just got older.

The first step is figuring out what’s actually important. Not just seemingly urgent.

It’s the truly important stuff that needs protection, early.

It needs to be scheduled like a non-negotiable, or it doesn't happen at all. Not squeezed into the gaps, but given the best hours of your day.

Whatever you keep telling yourself you'll get to eventually, that's probably the thing that matters most.

What is it for you?

If you know you need to write, whether non-fiction or fiction, one of the most essential habits is writing consistently online.

Writing online brought me hundreds of thousands of readers who know me, trust me, and many will eventually read my novels.

If you don’t know where or how to start, my course has got your back:

The Confident Writer takes you from procrastinating on writing to having the crystal clear clarity you need to feel good about writing regularly.

That’s the only way you’ll start to grow an audience of people who are excited for your words.

It shows you what to write about to get noticed. It also shows you who you should aim your writing at and how to write effectively to grow your first 1000 followers.

It's open now at $87, down from $197.

But it closes tomorrow, Sunday, January 25th at 3pm ET. Then it’s gone for several weeks.

Get The Confident Writer here before it closes.

Alex