Yesterday I opened up my profile at Thomas Kuegler and scrolled my Notes feed.
I was baffled by how much clutter was in it, so I started cleaning it up.
I hit the three dots in the top right of the Notes I didn’t want to see, and I clicked “Hide note.”
Nothing against Isis Bradford here. I’m sure she’s fantastic.
After I hit “hide note,” I saw a pop up like this:
I clicked on “show fewer notes like this.”
After about 10 minutes of doing this, my Notes feed looked clean, and full of people living unconventional lives abroad. “Ahhh, these are my people,” I said, proud of the work I’d done.
I needed to feed my algorithm more, though.
I needed to “lock in” my new direction.
So I started commenting on Notes that I wanted to see more of. Like this one from Liza Debevec:
Then I followed her by hovering over her name with my cursor, and clicking the logo on the right side of the pop-up.
I also took a look at her publication. It wasn’t quite the type of travel-related publication I typically subscribe to, so I did something CRAZY.
I didn’t subscribe.
I repeated this process for 30 minutes yesterday.
I followed 5 new people.
I left 5 new comments.
I subscribed to 2 newsletters.
I hid a dozen or so Notes.
Now, another version of me would’ve stopped right here and given you a spreadsheet for tracking these people to comment on their work every day. Or something.
I won’t do that now.
I’m going to try something new in 2025: What if I give the algorithm feedback and trust it will show me what I want?
What if I stopped looking at human beings as entries in a spreadsheet?
What if I, like, actually used Substack for what it was designed for?
The name of this publication is The Writing Long Game. I’ve seen great writers like Don Boivin grow a following simply by being themselves and engaging with people steadily over time. No hacks. No spreadsheets. Just genuine caring and a consistent habit of showing up every day.
Maybe it won’t result in rocket ship growth in mere days or weeks, but it will result in meaningful growth over the course of 6-12 months. That I can assure you. Here’s why. And here’s how.