The 30-Minute Notes Routine I’m Using as a Beginner

What I do before and after posting (and why commenting is working better than I expected)

It’s past midnight here.

My daughter fell asleep halfway through tonight’s Gilmore Girls episode (we’re on the Nth rewatch, obviously), and instead of going to bed like a reasonable adult, I’m sitting here scrolling Substack with a cold cup of tea.

This is my favourite time to write (when the house is quiet and nobody needs anything from me), lol!

And tonight I went down a rabbit hole about Notes. So that’s what this issue is about.

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The post that made me stare at my own feed

📌 “I Looked at Your Notes Feed. I Know Exactly Why You Aren’t Growing”
by Mack Collier · Backstage Pass Read it here

Mack’s whole argument is that your Notes feed is a signal.

A potential subscriber lands on your profile, scrolls for about forty seconds, and decides whether you’re worth following (based entirely on what your feed says about you).

He breaks down three patterns that quietly kill growth:

• the Broadcaster (only ever posting “here’s my new thing”),

• the Ghost (silence, then a burst of self-promotion, repeat), and the

• Surface Engager (lots of “love this!” comments that don’t actually say anything).

My honest take:I knew exactly the kind of feed he meant before I finished the paragraph. We’ve all seen them — feed after feed of “new post is live!” with zero replies underneath, no back-and-forth, nothing human. And I’ll be honest: I scroll right past those. I don’t want to follow a billboard. There’s a real person behind that screen, and I’d so much rather talk with someone than be talked at by what reads like a bot on a schedule.

It reminded me of why Gilmore Girls is so watchable, of all things. Lorelai and Rory never announce things at each other. It’s all rapid-fire, interrupting, building-on-each-other conversation. That’s what good Notes feel like. A conversation you happen to be having where people can see it.

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What I’ve actually been doing (and how it’s working)

So here’s the routine I’ve quietly settled into.

It takes me about thirty minutes a day, and it’s the single thing that’s moved my numbers more than anything else.

The first fifteen minutes, before I post anything of my own, I go and genuinely engage with other people’s Notes. Not “great post.” Actual sentences. A real thought, a question, something that adds to what they said.

Then I post my own Note.

And then I stick around for another fifteen minutes aaand I don’t post and run! I reply to people who responded, I keep the thread going, I treat it like an actual conversation instead of a drop-and-disappear.

The part that surprised me most: the active commenting is doing more for me than my own Notes are.

When I leave a real, thoughtful comment on someone else’s Note, other people read it. They click my name. They land on my profile. That comment becomes a tiny open door. And more than the numbers — it’s building actual relationships, which is the whole point.

Because nobody grows on Substack alone. We’re not in competition over here. We’re all collaborators, rising together. The sooner that clicks, the easier all of this gets.

One more tip:

you can schedule Notes now.

So batch a few when you’ve got the energy and let them go out across the week, because we all know how life gets (like I got crushed under that silly migraine last week!). The routine doesn’t have to depend on you being online at the perfect moment.

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A little something I made for you

I wrote this whole routine down, the exact thirty-minute structure, what to do in each window, and the kind of comments that actually open doors instead of clutter feeds. If the routine above sounds useful but you want it in one place you can actually follow, it’s right here.

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What’s new on Substack this week

Two genuinely big shifts landed, and both are worth knowing about even if they don’t apply to you yet.

📌 “Substack’s NEW Native Sponsorships Program That Pays”
by Kristina God · The Online Writing Club. Read it here.

Substack just rolled out native brand sponsorships AND real names like Uber, T-Mobile and Balenciaga are putting actual money into creators, with the writer keeping editorial control. Right now it’s only open to bestsellers with 100+ paid subscribers.

My take: the platform that built its entire identity on “we’ll never run ads” now runs ads — just dressed up nicely and creator-controlled. It doesn’t touch us beginners yet, but it tells you exactly where this is heading: the writers who win long-term won’t rely on subscriptions alone. Trust the model, but keep an eye on the meter.

📌 “Ditch The Templates” (on Subscriber Perks & monetization)
by Andi Bitay · Ditch The Templates Read it here.

The other launch was Subscriber Perks which is a dedicated tab where paid subscribers get extras like discount codes, downloads and live-session invites, while free readers see them locked.

My take: this one actually is useful for small creators. It quietly turns a subscription into a membership, and it gives free readers a concrete reason to upgrade instead of a vague “support me.” Even if you have zero paid subscribers today, it’s worth deciding now what your one perk could eventually be.

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It’s properly late now and the tea’s been cold for an hour.

But this is the stuff I genuinely love thinking about, not the hacks, the human part. The showing up, the conversations, the slow building of a little corner where people actually know each other.

Kind of like Stars Hollow, honestly.

You don’t become part of the town by standing in the square shouting about yourself. You become part of it by showing up, every day, and being a real one. That’s the whole game here too.

I hope you found this round up about Substack useful and it hopefully saved you some bit of time that you can go spend the way you like!

See you next week 🩵

Yuvika