My 5-step system for consistent writing

Hey Reader,

"I will write 1,000 words every day."

That's the commitment I made in 2012 that changed my life. I ended up writing 100,000 words in 100 days and went on to write 266,000 words in a year.

I wrote every day for nearly two years before finally breaking the chain.

Writing consistently continues to be one of the most important habits of my career. So when my coach asked me what I'd regret not doing the most if I imagined my life 5 to 10 years from now, my answer surprised me: writing books.

And it also frustrated me. Because for the life of me, I wasn't able to make very solid progress on my book while I was so focused on growing Kit.

That's because I'd fallen out of habit. I wasn't writing consistently.

My next book is about building wealth. I'm thinking about my sons when I'm writing it. It will definitely be the most important book I've written yet. But I haven't been making progress on my goal, and it's kept getting pushed to the back burner—until this past month.

I'd set a goal to hit 30,000 words by the end of a given week (I was at 22,000 words at the time), and I hit it. That breakthrough came from getting back to what worked before, plus a few new tools.

Here are the 5 unlocks that helped me get there:

1. Consistent writing habit

This is the foundation—if you don't have a consistent habit, your book won't get written. It's simple, but it's not easy. What worked for me:

Schedule the time. I wasn't scheduling the time. If you say "I want to write every day" but there's no block on your calendar, don't expect to write.

I hit my goal for the week because I made myself accountable

Accountability is huge. Either get an accountability partner or make yourself publicly accountable. I recently made a post stating that the word count on my book would be 30k by the end of the week. That made me accountable. Because I could either follow through or look inconsistent, and that was a big motivator.

2. Wispr Flow for dictation

You've probably heard me talk about this app a lot, and that's because it's been a game changer. I rarely type anymore, I mostly just speak. And Wispr Flow cleans up my speech into proper grammar with punctuation almost instantly.

I'm working on training myself out of the typing habit entirely. Here's the rule I follow: if you already know what you want to say, speaking is faster than typing. I'll even transcribe five-word messages now because the time saved adds up.

Sometimes I'll start talking, not like where an idea is going, and simply start over instead of trying to edit it after the fact—because it's actually faster.

3. AI as a thought partner

I cannot stress enough how good AI is as a thought partner. Getting unstuck is where it really helps. I'll ask it to challenge my thinking, find counter-arguments to my ideas, or help me work through concepts I've been wrestling with.

It's like having someone to brainstorm with without using up another person's time. When I'm working through ideas, that conversation helps me think through things in ways I can't do alone.

The reason this works so well is because you're feeding it your source material so it understands your voice and can work with your existing ideas rather than generating generic content.

4. Research interviews

Stories make principles stick, but they're hard to come up with on your own. So I don't try to. What I've been doing is interviewing people in my network and getting them to tell their stories.

The interviews serve three purposes:

They get transcribed and fed to AI to identify the biggest takeaways
I can get ask AI to match examples from interviews to book themes
When I'm stuck, I ask interviewees about it and often get unstuck

So I can simply get on a call, and that helps me finish an entire chapter.

5. Good project management

The last thing that's helped me is just having good project management. And really, I mean any project management. If you're just writing in a document and not tracking your overall progress toward specific goals, you'll just end up frustrating yourself.

I'm not using any fancy software. It's really just a spreadsheet my editor, Will, put together. Simply having a spreadsheet and the accountability of regular back-and-forth conversations with him goes a long way.

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So those are the things helping me actually write a book in 2025.

Each piece builds on the others. The habit gets you started, the tools make it easier, and the accountability keeps you going.

Are you working on a book? What stood out to you?

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