Your drafts folder is haunted 👻

Happy Halloween. Here’s a confession: for years, the scariest place in my business wasn’t on a stage or in a meeting, but in my drafts folder.

I’d write something good, read it eleven times, spend hours editing, decide it wasn’t ready, and park it. Then I’d do it again the next week. I was doing the thing that I see happen frequently: writing content and keeping my voice locked in drafts.

I hear the same thing from friends and clients all the time. They aren’t short on ideas. They have a whole graveyard of half-finished posts, each one waiting for a “better moment” that never comes.

So this week, let’s clear it out!

The 15-Minute Drafts Cleanout

Open your drafts, wherever they live (LinkedIn, your Notes app, that Google Doc). Set a timer for 15 minutes. Give every draft one of three labels:

1. Post it. It’s 80% there and still true. Fix one line, not ten.
2. Rework it. The idea is good, but the angle isn’t. Write one sentence at the top: What did this teach me that someone else needs to hear? If you can answer that, it’s your new opening line.
3. Let it go. You wrote it for who you were, not who you are now. Delete it.

Two rules while you sort:

• No rewriting during the 15 minutes. You’re sorting, not polishing.
• If you’ve edited a draft more than three times, it goes straight to “Post it.” It doesn’t need more work. It’s waiting for permission, and you already know how I feel about that: Courage > Permission.

When the timer goes off, pick one “Post it” draft and publish it before Friday.

I’m doing this myself right now. Building Dirty Hippie out loud means I have more half-written posts about it than I’d like to admit.