Issue 104: Going behind-the-scenes: How I write this newsletter
Until recently, I used a notebook to capture ideas for this newsletter as they came.
It worked fine in the beginning.
But as I made my way to 101+ issues, it was getting harder to track:
What topics I had covered
Which ideas were still in the are-they-worth-writing-about queue
Drafting continued to be a little messy 😬
[Picture me moving my head frantically between my notebook and desktop as I used the early notes I made* under each idea to inform the draft]
I hate to admit it but the process was chaotic, unnecessarily time-consuming.
Enter: ButterDocs to “streamline” production.
Here’s how:
Content ideas for different issues are in an idea doc
Approved ideas get a fresh document where I lay out the outline and add notes
My drafting space is heaven since I see both the outline + notes on either side of the main draft
Okay, hang on: I know what you’re thinking:
Why not just use good ol’ Google Docs for this?
I tried it when starting this newsletter, but besides giving me the I’m-exposed-to-editors-who-are-watching-me vibe, it was ALSO MESSY.
See:
Using Google Docs meant my ideas, brain dumps, and drafts lived on separate islands.
Sound familiar?
You’ve likely felt it when collaborating on long-form content:
✅ One doc packing in all the research, brain dump, and rough outline
✅ One doc featuring the final outline — shared with the editor/colleague/SME
✅ One editor doc and one draft doc for drafting, both generously switched between
✅ One final draft doc, shared with the team, all red and struck out with edits
Too. much. chaos.
Since moving to ButterDocs though, there’s quite some peace with 1 draft featuring:
The outline broken down into Blocks on the same document
(You can request feedback on specific parts of the outline or ask for SME input by giving them access to the specific block, not the full outline)
The final outline on the left and notes to your drafting space’s right
Meaning: one screen has all the essential info you need = no tab switching = easier, faster writing 🎯🎉
(This is for the second stage in production — post planning & outlining, when you’re ready to write or assign to the writer)
A branched draft (branch version of the draft) to share with different stakeholders
I use it to get feedback from early newsletter readers. You can give each person different access — read-only, comment, or edit.
A side-by-side comparison of the edited draft and original doc
Once you’ve chewed through feedback and settled on the edits, you can review the two drafts side by side.
And if you want, you can also merge the edited draft with the original one if you don’t want to go into record keeping.
This way:
I’m now saving time on writing this newsletter by having this one space where all my ideas, brain dump, draft, and feedback are.
There’s also one other feature I like called Stash.
So if a line from a newsletter issue doesn’t make it to the final version (trust me they are plenty!), I hit stash in ButterDocs and it gets stored there for reuse!
Which means: I’m actually reusing them (because otherwise I just forget where I cut and saved those lines 🙄)
So waddya think?
I kinda like ButterDocs so much that I’m using it to write my LinkedIn content too.
Chegg it out here (3 free docs)
Have more ideas for improving content workflow? Please share them with me — I’m all ears 🙌