Mind the Beginner

How often have you heard the line “Fake it until you make it”? It’s a very common phrase used to create confidence and to make others perceive you as something you’re not. A better version of you or something. And now don’t get me started on what “better” is.

And that is exactly my problem with this. Why would you want to hide who you truly are from others? Claims of being authentic are nice and all, but why do you need to tell others you are authentic. It’s the same as me telling you I am a blogger. You have eyes don’t you? You have a brain, and you can think for yourself. I don’t need to tell you anything about me being authentic. Likewise why would you need to tell others what you are about or cover up who you really are.

Being Authentic

I could go on endlessly about authenticity but that’s exactly what I want you to stop doing. I don’t want you to fake anything or boast with all kinds of claims about who you secretly want to be. Being yourself is much more powerful because you no longer need to spend energy in pretending to be someone else you can use every bit of energy you have to good use in being who you are!

Stop faking

Who are you, and what have you done with the real you? How long have you been pretending to be someone you’re not just so people would like you or believe you. Wait a second, in order for people to believe you you have to lie to them? That is what faking it means, no matter how you look at it, it’s nothing more than a big lie. A means to an end you might say in defence. A great way to build confidence if you don’t have any yourself, or to get out of a cycle you’re in. Just pretend it’s not there right?

Reality check

Pretending is not reality, pretending is not the truth. As long as you present you will never realize what’s inside of you waiting to come out. Be authentic but do not make claims about it. Just keep your mouth shut and be who you actually are, we all have eyes and a brain, we’ll know the truth when we see it. And if we don’t, that’s our problem, not yours. Be you.

Who are you?

No, not a herring! Although that would be a valid answer.

Do you have huge plans in your life, great big things you want to accomplish, cutting down the mightiest tree with that herring no less? Did you ever actually try chopping down a huge tree? It’s very hard and backbreaking work. Cutting it down to size so you have firewood seems a good idea but again, it takes a lot of time to do that, even with the help of a chainsaw.It’s so much work in fact that you’re never going to do it in your life.

All those wondrous plans you have are those mighty trees. Every single one of them is a huge effort and because it’s an established fact that gen y people expect everything handed on a silver platter you’ll never cut those trees down. You don’t have what it takes, and just so you know, neither do I.

So we have ourselves a small problem don’t we, we want firewood, and lots of it, but we don’t want to chop down that huge tree. But as is the case with most forests, there are much smaller trees there too. Pick on something your own size, it’s much easier to chop down.

The small ones will do

Things get progressively worse though. You start out in life with your mind filled with small trees. These small trees represent everything you want to do in life. Do you recall what you wanted to do back in preschool? You either had unrealistic trees (Becoming an astronaut is quite unrealistic) of you had saplings. A quick swing and you realised what you wanted.

But then you got older, not only did bigger trees materialize in your forest-mind. But those saplings grew and grew too. Some of these saplings turn out to be misconceptions about how life works. A few put you on the wrong path altogether.

Start swinging

As with everything in life you have a choice here. It’s not the choice of starting to gather firewood, that’s just something you’ll have to do in life. It’s where you get it. Will you keep looking up at those huge trees, wishing you had what it takes to take down that tree. Style points are awarded if you chop it down with the herring. You either don’t have enough firewood, or you take down the smaller trees. One day your stamina will definitely be enough, and your skill honed to such a level that those mighty trees are no longer an issue.

But for now, don’t bother with those big ones, there is more than enough to do down here. Not only can you create a fulfilling feeling taking down a tree, but you prevent those small misconceptions from growing to big to handle.

And now real life

All this talking about trees is nice and all, but do you have any idea what I’m talking about here? A small translation seems a good idea:

You can not without considerable luck achieve those huge plans you have without taking on smaller challenges first to hone your skills. As for those misconceptions in life, the longer you let them grown the harder it will be to get rid of them.

What is your mightiest tree?

A long time ago I wrote about the 100 items challenge and as you might know it’s one of the things on my “Freedom list 2010″.

In a nutshell it’s about getting rid of all your personal possessions save 100 items. Not only does this offer great potential to minimise clutter, it also lets you re-evaluate what really is important enough to keep. But there are some issues to deal with along the way. I’m going to take a closer look at the problems and options you have because I’m experiencing first hand all the problems of taking this challenge.

The problem

It sounds so simple, just take a piece of paper and write down the 100 things you want to keep. Get rid of everything else. But that’s just theory and as you know:

In theory practice and theory are the same, in practice however, they are not.

It’s not the actual selection of things to keep that is hard -well, actually it’s very hard, but that’s a different blogpost- it’s the getting rid of all the others things. How do you get rid of them, especially if they represent a significant value? You could sell them via Internet which is the obvious choice. But doing so will leave you waiting for buyers. Alternatively you could just toss them, but that’s like throwing away money and would be stupid. You end up with stuff you want to get rid of but are waiting for people to buy from you.

That’s exactly the situation I’m in right now, I have a lot of items that can just go, but almost everything represents some value. A problem that can be solved in four ways:

Choose your solution

1. Trash it
2. Sell it
3. Give it away
4. Keep it

Trash it

Not always the best option of course. But there comes a time when you have to realize that nobody is going to buy (or even want) your old bookcase or that collection of Christmas sweaters. You can keep it though but I’ll get to that option in a few lines. If all other options fail this is what you will have to do. It’s tough but when you finally get over this hurdle it’s one of the best feelings in the world. Your possessions no longer own you.  But let’s consider the alternatives first.

Sell it

The best option of all of course. Converting all those items you no longer need to cash so you can spend it on more stuff you don’t need, Oh wait, that wasn’t what we were trying to do. What can you do with the cash? Keep in mind that you don’t want more stuff, you want quality. A clear pitfall here is that you start buying better things all the time to replace the few items you keep. And then you;re stuck with the old thing you can’t find a buyer for. Your buyer wants one of two things: What you have to sell, but dirt-cheap or he wants what you want, the best of the best. And you are selling an older model because you upgraded. If you find a buyer, you’re lucky, but don’t forget: The value is not determined by what you’re asking, it’s what people are actually willing to pay, disregarding catalogue values and whatnot.

Give it away

Giving your stuff away is very liberating and grateful. It’s a great way to be frugal as well. In stead of buying a new gift you can give away what was once yours. The obvious pitfall here is that you give something that the receiver gave to you in the first place. A very painful mistake. Also you might want to check if what you are giving either seems new, or make it very clear that the gift is pre-owned   but still very usable. If it’s not as a gift, you don’t have to bother to much with these things however. Just make it clear why you’re giving it away.

Keep it

This is exactly what happens with most things we want to get rid of. Broken things we plan on mending, once useful things that we haven’t used in years like the spare spare spare bicycle in the shed. (I’m Dutch, there are 18 million bikes here, and one 16 million inhabitants.) Old clothing we will never wear again and why are you keeping those old magazines you’ll never read again? Keeping things you’ll never use again is clutter. If you can’t sell it or give it away you have one last choice to make:

• Will I keep this item that I will never use;
• or should I just trash it.

That’s all you can do. As I already said, things have no value other than what people will actually pay you to buy them. Nobody wants your clutter.

The other approach

I started this blogpost with the idea of writing down everything you want to keep. Let’s turn it around a bit, it just might help. Select 100 things you want to get rid of. Decide how long you will give yourself to actually achieve this and for every item determine if you’re going to trash it, sell it or give it away. Don’t make keeping it an option if you can’t sell it or give it away. You wanted to get rid of it so you know what to do!

After those 100, select a further 100 and keep at it until you have reached your goal. The 100 items challenge actually doesn’t have “keeping 100 items” as goal, it’s all about “getting rid of everything but..”. It’s a huge difference in state of mind. If you don’t feel like getting rid of things but want the minimalists life, you’re going at it the wrong way round. Wanting to get rid of things and living the minimalists lifestyle as a result is the way to go.

A quick edit: I stumbled across a blogseries over at simpleorganizedlife.com with a version on my blogpost. It’s called the 10 Things Challenge and David has been at it for weeks on end. Selecting 10 items each week and getting rid of them, A real inspiration there!

Will you regret reading this blogpost? Did you do something to make today count? Are you innovating, inspiring others or bettering yourself right now? Are you waiting for just the right moment? Who or what are you waiting for?

Where you are today is the accumulation of all your choices in the past

What is your excuse!

If you’re doing the same thing today that you did yesterday or last week you’re probably not making an effort to get where you want to be. Take the first step today or at least admit that you’re slacking.

How often is it that you hear people giving you excuses for things that they need to be doing. We humans are just plain lazy, working for something seems like a strange idea. You’d rather things just pop into place without any effort right? We all hope for that to happen but unless you’re totally ignorant you know that it’s not going to happen by itself. Depending on who you quote things left to themselves either stay exactly the same or go from bad to worse.

Let’s compare:

• You want things to pop into place by themselves but,
• left to themselves things stay the same or go from bad to worse.

Why is it then that you don’t do something about it? You’re still reading this blogpost right? Do you really think that reading this post will make things pop into place? You know better.

Blaming yourself

Looking back at my life there are a lot of instances that I should have stopped making excuses and looking for ways to slack. There are so many things in my past I wish I did differently and I’ve got myself to blame for all those missed opportunities. But do you know the problem with blaming yourself? you stay stuck in the past and thoughts about would have, should have and could have. I could have been a great guitarist if only…, I could have been a great martial artists if only…, I could be in far less debt if only… Just a few of the many things that are lodged in my mind.

I’ll be damned

But you know what? It’s not about what you could, should or would have done. It’s what you do this moment that counts, yesterday is in the past and tomorrow is in the future (how obvious what that one). Today is the present, it’s a gift that you had better accept and be happy with.

Where you are today is the accumulation of all your choices in the past. That is the essential sentence here because today will be yesterday tomorrow and so you can add todays choices to your past and slowly but surely form your path. You can’t change the past but you can put a lot of good things in it. And so if you don’t want to condemn yourself to feelings of regret in the future about all the things you didn’t do today go do them! Don’t give yourself any excuses or you will regret them when the time comes to reflect on what you did. Don’t give yourself any excuses you can beat yourself with.

I know it’s quite obvious. But why don’t you implement this and take action today? Admit it, you’re doing right now what you will regret tomorrow.

A strange word; knowing. Both in English and in Dutch (my native tongue) there is no word for the opposite of knowing. We just make due with something like “not-knowing,” immediately identifying it as in inferior to knowledge. It’s a simple fact of the Western world, we highly regard people with knowledge. So you’re constantly hiding the gaps in your knowledge, the things you do not know. Other words for not-knowing that are commonly used are dumb, stupid, ignorant and the list keeps going on. Not one word in the list is a simple flat “not-knowing” without the negative bias. You’re going to get one of those labels as soon as the word gets out that you don’t know. We value knowledge, not the absence of it. It’s of no use to us so there is no word for it. How stupid is that?!

The only thing I know is that I don’t know anything – Socrates

Where does knowledge come from? What is the source of knowledge, did you ever care to think about that one? Where does a painting come from, how did it start? How about this blogpost. Before it came to be, there was nothing there. A blank canvas, an empty screen with no words on it. That is what not-knowing is, total freedom to go in whatever direction you want. Once I start typing a blogpost it’s slowly taking form and the screen is getting filled. With each and every word committed to screen the possibilities become less and less. I’d have a hard time writing about speedreading in this blogpost now wouldn’t I, it would seem out of place. Now if only I had a blank screen.

Ode to the blank canvas

Freedom of thought can only be had with the blank canvas. Once you start adding stuff you’re committed and bound. These bonds are a part of every day life, you even treasure them, boasting with everything you know and keeping quiet about what you don’t. People would most certainly shun you if you confessed about not knowing. It’s a terrible state of mind to be in. Right?

By design, the modern human mind craves knowledge, especially in places where we can find none. When faced with an absence of information, we’ll make up something – we will believe and assume. This tendency appears to be universal – in every culture, some form of belief arises to fill in the lack of absolute “knowledge.” Every subculture with a set of beliefs clamors  to have the last word on the subject, claiming themselves the guardians of the Truth. Many of the different factions are willing to go to war over their inventions, but none is willing to confess that they simply don’t know what the truth is.
- Peter Ralston, The book of not knowing, 3:11

Not knowing definitely is a problem in the world these days, but why is that? Why is it that if you already filled your cup you’re applauded but if you offer an empty cup, than you’re looked down upon.

Believing or knowing, empty your cup

I’m going to give you an assignment to do:

1. Take a quiet seat somewhere and let anything and everything come to mind. There’s is a lot in your mind so expect a flood of things.
2. For all those things, ask yourself if those things are just beliefs or something you actually personally experienced. You’ll quickly discover that a lot of things you “know” are nothing more that beliefs.

Two very simple examples: The North Pole is cold and it’s hard to breathe on the summit Mt. Everest. Have you personally experienced these? No you haven’t, and still you claim to know these two statements to be true. For that matter, did you ever experience the earth not being as flat as was common belief in the Middle Ages?

These two are extremes and you can quickly recognize the belief factor. Accepting these two isn’t to hard, but getting to grips with not-knowing a lot of the things you belief is very frightening indeed. Suddenly the earth on which you built your life starts sliding, it’s not even sliding, it’s simply no longer there. *POOF* It’s hard to build a house on no-ground so the gaping hole is filled with beliefs.

A single exposed belief can cause a cascade effect that shatters your beliefs and your house falls down. Not-knowing is frightening isn’t it? But not-knowing does have one huge benefit over believing: It’s always the same, always true. It’s not going to go anywhere. And it’s your blank canvas! Shattering beliefs leaves you with the possibility to actually start experiencing and knowing. What’s worse, believing or not-knowing?

Admit it, you don’t know a fraction of what you believe you know! Empty your cup and enjoy.

Are you carefree? Do you really believe you are? Or are you just not getting what it is you should care about. Let’s face it, you’re careless and not smart or witty enough to be carefree. Being carefree means having nothing to be worried about. You’re either dumb and don’t see the problems in your life or you really did make an effort and know that what all the things are that you could worry about. After identifying those you made short work of it and are now carefree. Good for you!

Assuming that you’re just as dumb as me and just as obviously careless let’s press on.

Identifying things to worry about

Take out a piece of paper and start writing right now. Take exactly one minute to write down what you are worrying about and don’t stop until your time is up. You have 1 minute (click and start writing)

If your list looks a bit like mine right there at the top wil be:

• Money
• Purpose in life
• How you measure up to others

And lets not forget those classics like debt, uncertainties about your job and why your blog isn’t  as successful like those A-list blogs.

Stop it this instant!

Now you have your wonderful list of worries, it’s time to identify why they are there. For most of them it boils down to you just don’t care enough to do something about it! Check your worries, is there something on that list you can’t do anything about? Anything at all?

Yes that’s it, you’re being careless about your worries, doing nothing to get rid of them, letting them drain your energy day in day out. Oh yes, these worries drain you even if you don’t actively think about them. That’s what being careless is all about. You just lock them away in the back of your mind where they can wreak havoc undisturbed. And you’re wondering why you’re tired all the time right?

Now being carefree is a whole different ballgame. Seeming carefree at least because there is not a soul in the world who is totally carefree. It’s one of those “benefits” of being human. You get to worry about anything and everything during life.So, in the end, we’re all dumb and careless. It’s just a matter of dealing with it or not, your choice to make and your burden to live with.

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I’ve been blogging for almost a year now and last week I tweeted a question, asking how people got their blog to grow. You can read stories all over the net of people having a hugely successful blog within a year. I’m defining success as a lot of comments on each blogpost and hundreds/thousands of subscribers. Although this blog isn’t exactly what you call unsuccessful, things could be so much better. And that’s where I really could use your help.

Guest posting and engaging with other bloggers is key. That and being useful to your readers  -  Corbett Barr

The quote here is what I got back on my question via twitter. Guest posting and engaging with other bloggers isn’t to hard. My plans for that are simple: Guestposting on any blog that will have me. Small blogs and big blogs, none will be left  out as long as they fit in the same niche. To get in touch with more readers I’m going to dive deep into the blogosphere and comment on at least three blogs every single day. Of course those comments need to add value, a simple “First! hahaha”  or “What a great post, please visit my blog” won’t cut it. The most effective is looking for new blogs out there you didn’t comment on before, it’s getting your name out there. Frequently posting meaningful comments on the same blog will get you noticed by the writer and readers and so that’s also a good idea to get out there.

What is usefulness?

Usefulness is useless if nobody knows that you’re there

But I’m left with a single problem: I have no idea if my blogposts are useful to you. Am I writing things that matter and help? Or is it all a load of **** that nobody really finds interesting to read and/or is just dime a dozen content? How would you describe usefulness when it comes to blog content.

A long while back I laid out the plan on growing my blog  A blogpost filled with 16 building blocks to a succesful blog was what resulted. Back then the goal was 500 pageviews a day or 300 subscribers. I haven’t reached either – yet-, but the blog is still growing slowly every month and it’s only a matter of time until those goals are reached. There is no doubt in my mind about that. If there is one thing that I’ve learned from the successful bloggers out there is that things very rarely happen overnight. You’ll have to really commit and it can take years to build a really useful blog which is successful. Being useful by writing good content, answering questions and providing help is one side of the coin, it’s useless if you don’t reach anybody with it so you’ll have to market your blog as well. Usefulness is useless if nobody knows that you’re there.

I’d like to ask you two questions:

1. Is this blog useful to you?
2. What would make this blog more useful to you?

Blogging is very different from writing a book, you can actively engage with others and address issues that come up. It’s a great way of communicating and I want to make your experience on this blog better. Help me help you and we’ll both profit from it.

Thanks for the support my friend, I hope to hear from you

The most common type of mind is the closed mind. Or so it seems…

“I’d better spend the money before it’s gone”

This weekend I had a small social get-together with the in-laws and their social circle. My girlfriend was celebrating her birthday and I can tell you, she has an open mind, which seems to be a rare thing these days in real life. On the net you can talk to loads of people who don’t react funny when you talk about personal development, lifestyle design and even minimalist living. Those are topics I would hesitate to discuss in real life, but you would think that keeping track of finances at least would be a good idea and people could see the sense of it. Especially those who seem to suffer from chronic financial struggle and debt.

Well, forget that idea

The topic quickly changed to the habit of smoking and how some people there really should quit. Of course the money-going-up-in-smoke issue was discussed at length. I wondered how much people could spend on such a thing and if they had a clue. Quite obviously the wrong question because some of the in-laws there know I keep track of every cent myself.

And then came the jaw-dropping moment:

Laughter about me tracking my spendings followed. The smokers concluded that if they didn’t spend it on tobacco they would surely spend it on something else, without ever knowing where the money went! They seemed to share a way of thinking that goes a bit like this: “I’d better spend the money before it’s gone”

I repeat: jaw-dropping moment.

As the evening progressed it didn’t get any better. Listening as a skill was in short supply. Everybody was talking about themselves and trying to best the others with an even unlikelier story. Mixed in were the occasional rants about self-pity, being victims of society and of course complaining about money -and the lack of-. You’d think that people discussing their problems would like to know how they could tackle such issues of life and perhaps make a change.

Another huge mistake

And then came the revelation as I heard a Heavenly choir sing to me: People like to be the victim, to shove all responsibility under the carpet and talk about how unfair the world is. It’s a safe place to be because it’s known and as most would agree: the unknown is very scary. It seems to be a taboo to talk about doing something you didn’t do before but should have done a long time ago. At least, talking to find solutions and asking others for their opinions, solving problems in life and developing oneself. How wrong I was. These people didn’t want solutions or a kick in the right direction, they wanted pity.

Taking responsibility for life and owning all your actions is terrifying apparently. This can not be done with a closed mind for the answers to problems and changing of habits are products of the open mind, ready for new things and uncertain adventures. Thinking outside of the boxed thoughts seems to me essential for change to occur and responsibility to be taken.

I don’t understand closed minds like these. Why wouldn’t people want to change the negative things in life and strive for better things? Why stay in the same place if there are ways to get out? Then again. I could be terribly wrong here and should be put back in my place. Who am I to act like I’m superior!

Closed minds are all around and more often than not clash with each other in a struggle for right of speaking. Not listening to one another and complaining about the unfairness of the world is what surely follows. Or so it seems…

What do you think?

Like so many students I have a student loan, it’s not pretty but it’s there. It’s a statistically sound assumption to say that you have some form of debt too. Especially if you live in the USA. Although I don’t know my exact amount of debt to the cent that is a figure that keeps haunting me. But you know, there are two types of people with debt:

1. Those who are fully aware of their financial situation
2. Those who have a vague idea at best

Either you know you have a debt, how big it is, and what it’s doing from week to week or you have no insight in your financial situation. The reason I don’t know my exact debt is because I’m not to good with numbers. A click of the mouse will bring me to GNUcash. A totally free accounting program (Linux, Windows and OS X) that lets me keep track of every single cent I spend, earn and is otherwise added or subtracted from my assets and liabilities.In big red numbers is my student loan, down to the last cent. GNUcash lets you keep track of everything, in as many categories as you deem necessary. Form big ones like that student loan down to small ones like cash you find in the street. (Do you leave free money on the ground? I sure don’t!)

Keep track

As mentioned in “Your money or your life” it’s vital to “keep track of every cent that comes in to or goes out of you life”. It’s so important that on one page alone it’s printed three times, in bold. (Page 67 if you want to see) and I couldn’t agree more. The benefits are clear:

• You’ll never wonder at your balance again, and have no idea where it all went
• You’ll know exactly how much came in this month and how much was spent
• These two combined let you see if you live below your means
• You learn where your vices are if you have them.

Setting up GNUcash takes a little bit of time and the learning curve is a bit steep in the beginning but it’s a really easy program after the initial setup. No fancy layout, it’s minimal and does only what it’s supposed to do. You can generate graphs for just about anything but the most useful one is income vs expenses. Three collumns per period show you how much came in, how much went out and the difference. If the difference is chronically negative you’re having a serious problem. if it’s always positive, you’re living below your means. This is where you want to be for it’s no more than common sense to spend less than you earn right? The amount you don’t spend you can save for a rainy day or pay off that debt. If you manage to live below your means habitually your debt will decrease and in time you will no longer be haunted by that negative figure. Knowing your ghost makes it all the less scary.

If you have no clear idea on your financial status: Start keeping track as of today!
(Yes, every single cent)

I promise you, although it’s hard at first you will get better at it and soon it will become a habit, a very healthy one.

Some more reading:

The Four Noble Truths about Money

Winning the Lottery by being Frugal

The Defective Consumer says: Eat your vegetables

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If you’re not interested in effective writing or have mastered the skill of writing skip this blogpost. If you’re like me and always on the lookout for tips to make things more effective, this one if for you!

Block quotes are one of the three attention-grabbers when scanning an article to see if it’s worth reading. Read the blogpost to discover the other two.

Yesterday I dug up and old syllabus from my previous education as therapist. It was about effective writing and there were some nice pointers in there I really want to share with you. Over the years there have been a lot of blogposts and entire blogs on writing effectively. But as of yet there is one rule in my syllabus that I haven’t found out there yet. It might be, it might not be, at least now it’s here on this blog.

The rule of seven:

• No more than 7 sentences to a paragraph
• No more than 7 paragraphs to a chapter
• No more than 7 chapters to a text

With a margin of 2 on all these.

The word count

Simple isn’t it? But there is more of course. The maximum length of a sentence that  people can comprehend is related to education. It’s bit harsh but people who didn’t finish high school can’t handle sentences the way academics can. If you want to write a text that’s readable for everyone sentences should be no longer than 10 words. High School drop-outs can take 14 words and 24 words is a suitable length for academics. It’s not set in stone but it’s a good guideline to keep in mind when writing. Who is your audience? It’s quite easy to overestimate your readers.

Combining these two rules we get between 1250 and 7290 words to a text for everybody, and 3000 to 17496 words for academics. Somewhere in the order of 7000 words seems the ideal length for the typical eBook and 980 for a blogpost. All these are rough estimates of course but using these you can expect that an eBook over 17500 words long will surely be a bit on the long side.

Improving readability can be done by including underlines, bold, and italics but especially underlines are not a particular good idea in blogposts. After all, links in blogposts are almost always underlined and you could send the wrong signal. A text full of underlined words at first glance would seem like a text full of links. It could get even worse if you underline a word and make it blue as well. Now surely your first impression is that it’s a link. Did you try and click it?

Subheadings

are another way of grabbing attention and dividing a text to improve readability. It draws the attention and effective subheadings will almost lure the reader deeper into the text. The title of the article is the first thing people see and so that too should grab attention while covering the essence of the article. Not to long and definitely to the point, it should leave the reader with the feeling of “I need to read this”. These aren’t all the tools you have to write effectively. Blogreaders are a special breed of readers, they want the information in quick, scannable bits and are always in a hurry. As a blogger you can help your readers with that and provide highly scannable content.

One of the easiest things to scan is the:

• The list
• it’s short
• easy to scan
• and provides structure
• see what I mean?

Chances are you already scanned the list before actually reading the blogpost. Together with the subheadings these are two of the three most scannable features in any blogpost. The last one you’ve probably already scanned as well before deciding to read this post. It’s the block quote at the beginning of this blogpost. These three text-based eye catchers are what grabs you at a first glance. (Four if we count the title of the blogpost.) That leaves us with one non-text eye catcher that is absolutely crucial. A picture is worth a thousand words and doesn’t increase the word count! A bad picture or no picture at all will seem dull and uninspiring. The right picture makes or breaks a blogpost.

The closing line to a blogpost is where you make your statement. Use all the tools you have, make your blogpost scannable, make a clear statement, and don’t forget to write both a good opening and closing  line, they really matters.