How I Write Culture Study

Nitty gritty for the process nerds

Subscribers, if you haven’t hung out in this week’s Advice Time, this is your reminder to go over there, sort comments by “Newest First,” and impart some wisdom. What are your go-to cheap family summer vacations? What would you tell someone about to move from in-house work to freelance/contract? How do you deal with a sagging kitchen cabinet? People need your help (and there’s still space to ask for your own advice!)

Quarterly Advice Time is just one of the many perks of becoming a Culture Study Subscriber: you also get the weekly Things I’ve Read and Loved (including the Just Trust Me), the ability to participate in the rich discussion threads on each piece, access to the big monthly Links/Recs posts, plus all the other addictive threads that will fill your TBR pile, help you find something you actually want to watch, and offer space to work through so many of life’s big, recurring questions, like “What’s a Good Job” and “What Do You Eat When You’re So Hungry You Feel Like Eating Your Own Arm.” Plus: full access to essays like this one.

If you’re already a subscriber: thank you for making this work sustainable. If you’re not, maybe this is the push you need to come join us.

I get a lot of questions about how I organize my time, how I come up with ideas for the newsletters, how I do my Q&As, how Melody and I work together on the podcast — and I’ve been wanting to put a bunch of answers together in one place for some time.

Some of this will seem banal, some of it might surprise you, some of it will be interesting simply because hearing how other people organize their weeks and brains is interesting. I’m going for all of the above. Below, I’ll talk about how I organize my week, how I organize the future, how I think about churn, how I decide to paywall, how I find “coworkers,” and more. And yes, this particular piece is paywalled! The vast majority of stuff isn’t, but sometimes you’ve got to create a little curiosity gap to spur people to pay for the stuff they find valuable.

How I Organize My Week

I think of Culture Study labor in four buckets: original essays, Q&As, threads, and the podcast.

Mondays are for digital housekeeping.