Do What You Want With it. Online Advice Of Any Kind Can Be Overrated.

If there’s one thing that the Internet’s not short on, it’s ways to waste your time, and advice. This post is about the latter. You’ll learn real quick who knows what they’re talking about, and who is full of B.S.

It occurs to me that after dispensing so much advice of the writing variety, that I should step back for a moment, and let you know that not everyone is a DIY writer, and that’s OK. Case in point, I’m not subscribed to any DIY small business accounting blogs.

Why? Because I suck at math. The most basic math problems out there require a calculator for me to handle. I figure I’ll leave that for the numbers people. I’ll stick to words.

You don’t need to feel obligated to adhere to every piece of advice you come across, either. You can write in the ways that are the most comfortable and productive for you. There’s a lot of good ideas out there, and a lot of things that are helpful, and then there’s tips that flat out aren’t right for you.

Several years ago I lost a significant amount of weight. All of the advice that I read stated not to weigh yourself on the scale every day. The reasoning was that they did not want you to become discouraged if you had one day with a weight gain, and quit.

Well, curious minds want to know. Obsessively, I weighed myself nearly every day before I showered. The trick was to not become discouraged with short term fluctuations. Follow the boy up the mountain, not his bouncing yo-yo. I still succeeded in my ultimate goal at the time. My point is that it’s OK not to adhere to every piece of advice you read along the way.

Writing is a creative art. Once you get the tools down, there’s no right or wrong way to blog, write website content, or communicate your message. Sure there’s good ideas and bad ideas, but there’s a whole lot of gray in between. If you see a piece of advice you don’t like, or that doesn’t fit you, don’t follow it.

Pick up where you left off. Figure out what works for you, and do it your way.

Matt Brennan is a Chicago-area marketing writer and copy editor. He is also the author of Write Right-Sell Now.