📝 The Behind-the-Scenes Setup I Use When I Don't Have Much Time or Energy
A simple approach to showing up when energy runs low
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I’m almost 36 weeks pregnant, and I hit a wall I didn’t think I would hit for a few more weeks. Maybe that was just hopeful thinking. I knew the third trimester would bring its own kind of tired. I just didn’t think it would arrive quite this early.
There are evenings now when sitting down to write feels like a lot, and mornings when the things I usually do without thinking, like the small maintenance tasks, the check-ins, and keeping up with notifications, feel genuinely out of reach.
What surprised me more than the tiredness was the guilt. And I’ve been noticing I’m not alone in that. Lately, I keep seeing creators on Substack opening their newsletters or Notes with apologies.
Sorry for being quiet. Sorry for not replying sooner. Sorry for being offline for a few days. I understand the impulse. It comes from a genuine place of caring about the people who are reading. But I think we need to gently let go of that.
Part of why I think this is so hard is that we have been conditioned by social media to believe that visibility equals value. That if you are not posting, responding, and showing up in real time, you are falling behind or losing ground. That presence is the product.
But this is not social media. Substack is not a platform that punishes you for taking a breath. Your readers chose to subscribe to your words, not to a live feed of your life. That is a different kind of relationship, and it deserves a different kind of standard.
Your readers are not sitting at their inbox waiting and wondering where you went. They are living their lives the same way you are living yours. Most of them have been right there in their own full lives. There’s no debt to pay and no explanation owed.
If you’re someone who has opened a newsletter with an apology in the past, know this: it came from the right place. It came from caring. And you can let it go now without feeling guilty.
A slow week is not a breach of trust. Showing up imperfectly over a long period of time is worth so much more than performing consistently during a season when you genuinely don’t have it to give.
The goal isn’t to never slow down. The goal is to build something that doesn’t require an apology when you do. That's what this newsletter is built around. Real creative work, in real life, with a structure that holds when things get hard and doesn't ask you to perform when they do.
What I decided before things got hard
This is where I want to be honest about something. The reason my Substack is still moving forward right now is not because I found a way to push through.
It’s because I made most of the important decisions before I needed to. Before the energy got low and I had to make choices while already depleted. Deciding ahead of time so the hard weeks don’t stop you.
It sounds simple. In practice, it changes everything.
One of the biggest reasons I can keep moving forward in a season like this is that I already know what I’m writing about. At any given time, I have at least a month of content mapped out, not fully written, but just planned out.
Each week has a theme, and each of my three series has a newsletter idea that coordinates with it. That structure means that even on the weeks when I have no energy to think strategically, I’m not starting from zero. I already know the direction.
What I’m doing in the moment is just finding the part of that idea that feels true and relevant for where I actually am right now. The theme stays, the angle adjusts, and that’s what keeps it genuine without requiring me to come up with something fresh every single time I sit down.
For me, deciding ahead of time also looked like this: I built my publishing rhythm around a schedule I could actually maintain at 20%, not just on my best weeks. I kept my content structure simple enough that I could fill it in even when I was tired.
And I set up a few small tools that would help me hold things together even when I couldn’t be fully present.
The tool that keeps me from losing my place
I want to be clear about how I use WriteStack, because it might not be what you’d expect. I’m not primarily using it to schedule Notes, though it does that too. I’m using it primarily for the activity center for the notification management side of things.
Here’s why that matters. Keeping up with Substack notifications directly inside the platform has always been a friction point for me. The way they’re organized, the way it’s easy to miss things when you’re not checking consistently, or when you do check but don’t have the time to thoughtfully reply right then and there.
It never quite worked the way I wanted it to. When I’m in a slower season, I don’t need the anxiety of knowing I’ve let things pile up and can’t find where I left off.
WriteStack solves that. When I come back after a few days or a week of not being fully present, I can step right back in. I know where I am. I know what I haven’t responded to. I don’t feel like I’ve lost ground.
That feeling of being able to step back in without starting over is exactly what I was trying to build when I set this up. A foundation that holds even when I can’t be present 100% of the time.
A quick note: the WriteStack link above is an affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission if you sign up through it. I only share tools I actually use, and WriteStack is genuinely part of how I keep things moving right now. That will always be true of anything I recommend here.
A note on scheduling Notes
Substack now offers native Notes scheduling when you’re on your desktop, which I want to mention because it’s worth knowing about. From the Notes composer, there’s a calendar icon in the toolbar that opens a date and time picker.
You can write your Notes in one sitting and let them go out throughout the week without needing a third-party tool like WriteStack to do it.
For someone like me, this matters more than it might seem. Scheduling Notes ahead of time doesn’t mean I’m being less genuine or spending less time engaging with others, it means I’m protecting the genuine version of myself.
When I batch a few Notes on a good morning and let them go out over the next few days, what my readers are getting is still actually me. My real thoughts, my real words, written when I had something to say. The only thing that changed is that I’m not forcing myself to perform on days when I have nothing left.
Consistency and authenticity aren’t in conflict here. Scheduling is just how I make sure the real version of me still shows up, even when the tired version is the one sitting at the desk or not able to be actively present.
The actual planning method
When I sit down to plan, especially in a week when I don’t have a lot to give, I keep it to three things.
The first is deciding on the one thing that has to go out. One newsletter, one Note, one small act of showing up. Just one. Everything else is a bonus that week.
The second is deciding what already exists that I can use. A post I can reshare, a pull quote I can turn into a Note, something already written that can do some of the work for me.
Creating from scratch is only one option. Reaching back into what you’ve already built is another. Even when you’re writing a newsletter you can repurpose content you’ve written in the past.
The third is setting up my next move before I close the laptop. When I know I’m running low, I try to leave something ready for future-me to pick up. A draft with a subject line already written. A Note sitting in the scheduler, ready to go. One small thing that means I don’t have to start cold the next time I sit down.
That’s it. And on the weeks when even that feels like too much, I give myself permission to let one of them go and step back into things without guilt and without fully quiting altogether.
What this week can look like for you
If you’re in a slower season right now, for any reason, I want you to know this isn’t a test of your commitment. It’s just a season. And the goal is to still be here when it shifts.
Think about what one decision you could make right now. What’s your minimum? What already exists that you could reach back to? What would make it easier to step back in after a few days away?
You don’t need a complicated system. You need a few things decided in advance and somewhere to set them down so they’re waiting for you when you’re ready.
That’s what having a foundation actually looks like. It’s not grand but it's just what keeps you building over time.
Your Next Step:
Pick one of the three moves from this post and apply it to your publishing plan this week. If you're not sure where to start, start with the first one. Decide what the one thing is that has to go out. Then let everything else be a bonus.
With joy,
P.S. If nothing else, answer the poll above. It genuinely shapes what comes next here, and I want what comes next to be useful for where you actually are.
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Would you want a behind-the-scenes look at how I actually build out a monthly content map — the process I use to plan themes and newsletter ideas a month in advance across all three series?
I’d love to know what would be most useful for you next. Reply to this email or leave a comment below to let me know.
Man this article is so timely, thank you for sharing these grounded, calming tips to keep showing up with intention💓 Content mapping is so fascinating to me, I feel like a behind-the-scenes would be so cool! I have created so much over the years that I know I don't have to start from scratch to create anymore, so I love seeing how others continue to cultivate from their creative arsenals too! It's so inspiring. Thank you for this Brandy!
Thank you for this gem. I’m new to Substack and also in a season of slowing down, being intentional, and putting my body’s needs first. That pressure to show up daily and “be consistent” when your calendar is full or it just isn’t in you physically is real. And it’s not what God intended for us. 💗