How writing a newsletter helps me fight my imposter syndrome

How writing a newsletter helps me fight my imposter syndrome



In this tiny article, I want to share how writing a newsletter helps me fight my imposter syndrome


Lately, I've added a kind of changelog of all the new Service Design content I published in my newsletter. You can see examples of these changelog-newsletter here:

  1. Service Design Newsletter of August 25th 2022

  2. Service Design Newsletter of August 15th 2022

The next newsletter is going to be one full of content. In the draft, there are already: 

  • 12 new Service Design Principles 

  • 15 new Service Design questions and answers

  • 4 behind-the-scenes blog posts.


And tomorrow is Saturday, which means I'll have a deep work session where I'm focused only on editing some other Service Design Principles.


This newsletter will be overwhelming 🌊


But I have to say that every time I add something to the newsletter draft, it gives me a positive reminder: 

"You've made progress, dude!". 


The fact that on the top, I summarise with numbers all things that are new or updated since the last newsletter shows me at a glance how productive I was. 

So I have to admit that I'm not sure if the person that gets the most out of the newsletter is the guy reading it or just me to heal my impostor syndrome. 

In fact, I think that this is true for most of my writing. I first write for myself, and it happens that it can be helpful for others too. I started writing my Service Design Principles to remember these ideas better and to keep practising a Service Design mindset daily. Now, these notes have become books that help others, but they started as something that helped me.

Written by Daniele Catalanotto on Friday 2nd of September 2022.

The Backstage Blog

Buy nowLearn more

September 2023

  • A few mistakes and lessons learned when running webinars
  • How long does it take to edit and publish the video of a webinar?
  • How long does it take to import content in my digital brain?
  • Why I've built a landing page for my service design digital brain?
  • How I upgrade my video content with AI when I import it in my digital brain
  • How and why I'm using AI labels in my digital brain
  • 5 tools I use to organize a virtual book tour

August 2023

  • 4 ways I use notion.ai to help me run the Swiss Service Design Network

July 2023

  • Why I’m migrating my content to a knowledge base built with Intercom

June 2023

  • How long does it take to make a video Q&A?
  • How I use Descript to create new Service Design content

May 2023

  • A short review of SiteGPT
  • Ask AI: Why I'm trying to create a specialized AI in Service Design
  • Early exploration of 8 apps to create a specialized Service Design ChatGPT tool
  • How I use audio notes to write when I'm not motivated

April 2023

  • Why I asked a pro photographer to create a library of portraits
  • The newsletter has a new archive page

March 2023

  • How I "hack" podia to create my blog and help center
  • How I prepare my weekly newsletter with Notion and Podia

February 2023

  • How I used Notion AI to write a summary of a webinar
  • A first prototype for a Tiny Service Design Bible

December 2022

  • How much it costs me to create a book?
  • How I write and prepare my newsletters
  • Why I'm taking my newsletter more seriously
  • A first experiment using AI to write educational content
  • How I create and maintain my Service Design Questions and Answers Library
  • How I created a course with a small burn or little effort mindset

November 2022

  • Why I re-commited to Podia for the next few years

October 2022

  • Reflections after a 3 day book editing sprint
  • How I write in the open with a timeline of changes
  • How I manage references and sources in the books I write
  • How I onboard early reviewers for my books

September 2022

  • How writing a newsletter helps me fight my imposter syndrome
  • Tiny apps that help to write a book

August 2022

  • Book writing update
  • How much time does it take to publish a webinar?
  • What tools do I use to publish my webinars?

April 2022

  • Shadowing: How I edit a Service Design Principle

March 2022

  • How I edit my drafts to make them ready for a book
  • How I try to make automated email sequences that don't suck

January 2022

  • How I shoot my video guides
  • How I'm starting the work on a new book of the Service Design Principles Series
  • How I'm building my next free course in the open

December 2021

  • How and why I'm changing my prices
  • A big update to the website

September 2021

  • How I wrote a book, this time with a baby šŸ¼

August 2019

  • How did I prepare the marketing side for a conference

July 2019

  • How much money did I make in 7 month with online courses and books? šŸ’ø
  • A new writing routine with trains and crazy landscapes šŸ”
  • How long does it take to write the first draft of a book?

June 2019

  • Prototyping the workshop planner app ā°
  • The story behind "Why workshops work"
  • A big update to the website šŸš€

May 2019

  • How long does it take to prepare 10 articles
  • How I prepared my social media posts for the next year
  • What's in the making (May-June 2019)?
  • How much time does it take to create a workshop template?
  • How I come up with content ideas for my books

April 2019

  • What online tools do I use to build an online course?
  • How I shoot my online course videos
  • How I prototyped the videos of my first online course
  • How long does it take to make a video online course
  • Starting the behind the scenes