Unpublished Drafts: A Consultant's Masterclass in Productive Procrastination

Looked at my drafts folder today. Folders of unpublished posts stared back at me. Not one, not two but folders. Some of these drafts are two years old. One about Mullvad’s passwordless architecture and Part 1 has over 10,000 characters and at least a couple of custom technical diagrams. It’s good. Actually helpful. I’ve opened it umpteen times in six months. Closed it umpteen times without publishing.

If you’re reading this, you probably have your own version of this folder. Your own collection of almost-published thoughts, gathering digital dust like a library in an abandoned mansion.

My cycle goes something like this:

1. Solve something hard. Usually technical. A BigQuery optimization that shouldn’t work but does. A customer data platform integration held together with API duct tape and prayer. The kind of problem that consumed days of my life.
2. Get excited. That post-solution high. The “I should share this so nobody else suffers like I did” impulse. Very altruistic. Very noble.
3. Start writing. First 500 words flow like water. I’m helping people! I’m contributing to collective knowledge! I’m basically a digital philanthropist!
4. Check what others wrote. This is where the train derails. Other people covered this. Their approaches differ, but not that much. The voice in my head starts its performance.
5. Spiral into research. “Mine’s different because of X,” so I research X deeper. X connects to Y. Y connects to Z. Suddenly I have 23 browser tabs about rate limiting across different marketing automation platforms, three academic papers about distributed systems, and a Wikipedia deep-dive into the history of HTTP status codes.
6. Promise to “finish it later.” When I have “more complete data.” When I can make it “comprehensive.” When Mercury is in retrograde and the stars align. (The stars never align.)
7. Never finish it. The draft joins 46 others in my Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

Key Finding:

According to 2025 creator economy research, 52% of content creators experience burnout. But here’s the twist worthy of an M. Night Shyamalan film—the burnout isn’t from creating too much. It’s from the exhausting mental gymnastics of constantly thinking about creating while never actually doing it.

Researchers call it “creative fatigue.” I think that’s diplomatic. More accurate: self-inflicted analysis paralysis with a side of impostor syndrome.

I’m not fatigued from creativity. I’m fatigated from turning every potential blog post into an audition for my own expertise. Every draft becomes a referendum on whether I’m smart enough, experienced enough, unique enough to deserve the internet’s precious attention.

Spoiler: The internet has approximately infinite attention capacity and also contains 47 million cat videos, so the bar’s lower than I think.

Why Technical Experts Struggle to Publish Content

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Let me get specific about where this comes from. Not in a therapy-session way (though that would probably help), but in a “here’s the structural problem” way.

The Consultant’s Original Sin

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I spent years billing clients $375 per hour. Not $374. Not $376. Exactly $375—that psychological pricing sweet spot that says “premium but not absurd.”

When someone paid that rate, I was selling my ability to know things they didn’t and solve problems they couldn’t. My expertise had a direct, unambiguous price tag. Like a very expensive vending machine, except instead of Snickers bars, you got database optimization strategies.

So when I sit down to write a blog post explaining something, there’s this voice that sounds suspiciously like my accountant:

“You’re giving away what people pay you for. You’re devaluing your intellectual property. You’re basically the Napster of consulting expertise—destroying your own industry one free blog post at a time.”

This voice sounds rational. Professional. Financially prudent.

Here’s the thing though, it’s completely wrong about how consulting works in 2025

How Consulting Actually Works Today

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Here’s the uncomfortable truth in table form, because tables make everything feel more authoritative:

The brutal, liberating truth: Clients don’t hire me because I know things they don’t. ChatGPT knows things they don’t. The entire internet knows things they don’t. Hell, their nephew who “understands computers” knows things they don’t.

They hire me because I can navigate the political landscape where Marketing hates IT, the CTO vetoed the last three solutions, the budget was set in 2019, and somehow I need to integrate five incompatible systems before the fiscal year ends. That blog post about “Privacy-Preserving Analytics Architectures” isn’t replacing my consulting engagement. It’s the trailer that makes them want to see the movie.

The Status Thing We Don’t Talk About

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Here’s the uncomfortable part that requires some vulnerability. (pauses for a deep breath…)

Keeping knowledge locked up feels like status.

There. I said it. Someone call a therapist and also maybe a priest.

If I publish exactly how I approach data models and integrations, or share my frameworks for MarTech evaluation, or explain my data governance process—if I just… put it all out there—then what makes me special?

I’ve built a career on pattern recognition. On being the person who walks into a client’s marketing/data technology stack and immediately spots the inefficiencies they’ve been papering over with manual processes and hope. That ability feels rare. Valuable. Worth protecting.

But if I write down exactly how I do that pattern recognition, doesn’t that make it replicable? Like Colonel Sanders… publishing the KFC recipe… on Substack?

The Consultant’s Fear: Giving Expertise Away for Free

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This fear made perfect sense in 2015. In 2025, it’s like worrying that telephones will replace face-to-face conversation. (Wait, that actually happened. Bad example.)

Here’s what’s actually happening while I protect my precious knowledge in my drafts folder:

Less qualified but more consistent people are dominating the conversation.

They’re not waiting for perfect. They’re not conducting six months of supplementary research. They’re publishing good-enough insights three times a week. Some of it’s shallow. Some of it’s wrong. Some of it makes me want to write angry corrections in the comments (which I don’t, because that would require actually engaging).

But they’re visible. They’re part of the conversation when decisions get made. They’re who people think of when they need an expert.

And me? I’m like the tree that falls in the forest with nobody around. Except instead of a philosophical question, it’s just sad.

Despite:

• Implementing CDP solutions for enterprises with 20+ million customer records
• Building (one of, if not) the most profitable division of a Google Premier Partner in 18 months
• Working on regional-scaled projects impacting millions of globally
• Having 18+ years of hands-on data and marketing technology experience
• Being able to debug data integrations in my sleep (this is not a flex; my sleep quality is concerning)

Nobody knows any of this because I haven’t published anything substantial since… well decades really.

I’m the internet equivalent of that incredibly talented musician who never records an album because they’re still “perfecting their sound.” Meanwhile, auto-tuned pop stars are selling out stadiums.

AI Making It Both Better and Harder

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Creators predict AI will reshape content creation by 2025. Well - they’re right, but probably not how most people fear.

AI hasn’t replaced creators. It’s just made the already-loud voices exponentially louder.

The people producing a lot can now produce more with AI assistance. Their signal-to-noise ratio might be dropping faster than my faith in humanity after reading YouTube comments, but their sheer presence is increasing. They’re everywhere. They’re in your search results. They’re in your LinkedIn feed. They’ve Freddy Krueger’d your dreams at this point.

The only real solution to this infestation isn’t to create more volume; it’s to create different value. But I’d have to actually create it.

This also means I can either keep protecting my knowledge in my drafts folder like Gollum with the ring, or I can accept that silence doesn’t protect competitive advantage. It just ensures nobody knows I’m in the competition.

What I’m Actually Trying to Protect

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After months of examining this pattern like a therapist with too much free time, I think what I’m really afraid of is being publicly, permanently wrong.

When insights stay in my drafts folder, they remain in a quantum state. Schrödinger’s expertise—simultaneously brilliant and flawed until observed. The possibilities are infinite. The potential is unlimited.

Once published, they’re just… whatever they are. Subject to scrutiny. Open to critique. Vulnerable to someone in the comments pointing out what I missed with the casual brutality of internet strangers.

Potential feels safer than actual.

The Dexter-ious Effect

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I’ve cultivated what I can only describe as a Dexter-like inner monologue. Not the serial killer part—though my relationship with unpublished drafts is arguably sociopathic. The constant analytical voice-over. The running commentary on everything.

It’s what makes me good at consulting. I can walk into a client’s infrastructure and immediately start pattern matching. Connecting dots. Seeing systems within systems like that meme about the conspiracy theorist with the red string.

But that same analytical voice becomes a liability when it comes to publishing.

Every potential blog post triggers the full forensic analysis:

• “Is this insight actually unique, or am I just saying the same thing as everyone else in a slightly different font?”
• “Will sharing this framework make me less valuable, or will it demonstrate expertise? How do I know? Should I conduct a longitudinal study?”
• “What if someone implements this and it fails spectacularly? What if they blame me? What if they sue me? Do I need content liability insurance?”
• “Is this substantial enough to justify adding more 1s and 0s to the internet?”

The analysis never ends. The publish button remains un-clicked. The drafts accumulate like snow in a Chicago winter.

Here’s what I’m slowly, reluctantly accepting: This analytical voice isn’t wrong to ask questions. Good questions are valuable. Due diligence is professional.

But letting those questions prevent all action isn’t wisdom. It’s just fear wearing a lab coat.

My Publishing Anxiety Experiment

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I’ve been thinking about trying something different. Not a complete content strategy overhaul—that feels overwhelming enough to trigger another six months of planning paralysis. But small, sustainable changes that lower the drawbridge between thinking and publishing.

The TIL (Today I Learned) Approach

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I keep coming back to this TIL format. It feels right because it acknowledges imperfection by design. The format itself is permission to be incomplete. It’s not trying to be the definitive guide to anything. It’s just documenting one specific discovery.

This is revolutionary for my anxious brain. Like finding out you don’t need to cook a five-course meal—sometimes a sandwich is enough.

Why TIL solves my specific neuroses:

My TIL Template (Simple, Because Complicated Is My Problem)

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Here’s the structure I’m thinking of using. It’s designed to prevent my brain from adding “just one more section”:

# [Specific Discovery]: [Tool/Context/Content]

**The Problem:** [What I was trying to do/What got my attention]

**The Discovery:** [What I learned - 2-3 sentences max]

**Why It Matters:** [Broader implications or time saved]

**Code/Config:** [Relevant snippet if applicable]

Tags: #CategoryName #SpecificTool

Real example from last week:

# HLS.js: The Adaptive Streaming Hook

**The Problem:** Hosting thousands of video files would cost $$$/month 
in CDN fees. Standard video embeds killed page speed scores.

**The Discovery:** HLS.js enables adaptive bitrate streaming where a single 
master playlist dynamically serves different video quality levels based on 
user bandwidth. Combined with server-side rendering, we generate location-
specific .m3u8 playlists on-demand. 

**Why It Matters:** Reduced video hosting costs by 89% (one set of segments 
vs. 50K unique files). Pages load in under 2 seconds despite video content.

Tags: #HLS #VideoStreaming #MarketingTechnology

Simple. Unintimidating. Just enough structure to be useful without becoming another source of anxiety.

This isn’t perfect. But perfect isn’t the goal anymore. Published is the goal.

Character development! Growth! Insert inspirational music here!

What’s Next: Start, Don’t Stop

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I’m committing to trying about three months of this TIL experiment. 10 - 20 entries per month, plus one comprehensive deep-dive. We’ll see what happens.

Maybe it works and I discover sustainable publishing. Maybe I discover I was right to be cautious and the internet is actually a hostile wasteland where good content goes to die. Maybe I find out that publishing imperfect insights doesn’t devalue my expertise—it just makes it visible to people who might actually benefit from it.

Right now though, those drafts aren’t protecting anything. They’re just evidence of overthinking.

Time to try underthinking instead. (Within reason. I’m not about to advocate for thoughtlessness. That’s what every shortform social network is for.)

I’ll report back in three months on how this experiment goes.

Unless I overthink the follow-up post and leave it in my drafts folder forever, which would be both ironic and completely on-brand…