Putting this together is not as hard as it seems.I was at a FinTech meetup in Boston this week where I was pleased to bump into Friend of Dave Franklin Gold. As we caught up, we discussed the importance of personal branding, particularly when you are working independently as a consultant. A few things came up in our brief chat that I thought I would pass along (NOTE: skip to the links if this topic is old hat or uninteresting to you).One question I get frequently asked is about how long the FoD newsletter takes to put together. The answer: hard to say because it varies. I read a ton of stuff throughout the week, and the free service I use to format this email, Revue, makes it really easy for me to bookmark stories as I consume them. I subscribe to a lot of daily and weekly emails myself (most have both original content and curate outside content as well), and I frequent Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to troll for additional interesting stories. I have both a Chrome extension on my laptop browser and an extension for Safari on my iPhone, so no matter when I come across some content that I think some of you might like, I can quickly bookmark it for future consideration. Sometimes I read an article thoroughly first and then select it. Often, I read the headline and just scan the article, save it if it looks like it has potential, and then read more thoroughly before I include it in the newsletter. All in all, I probably spend at least an hour over the course of each day reading stories on a wide range of topics I find interesting (btw, this is a habit I have had for almost my entire professional career). I then spend about 30 minutes (usually on Friday afternoon/evening) selecting the specific stories that will comprise each issue. I have a pretty big backlog of stories, so usually it is more about variety or timeliness and I often make a mental note of stories throughout the week that I definitely want to include as I bookmark them. And finally I make sure the little blurbs under each provide good summaries -- that probably takes 30 minutes just for that.The time putting together the intros also varies depending on the topic. When I first started the newsletter, a preamble would easily take over 1-2 hours to write each week. As time has gone on, I have gotten much better at writing these in a much shorter time frame. Based on feedback and some crude data analysis, I find that 400-800 words is usually optimal for the intro. If it is too long too often, subscribers stop opening the email. If it is too short, it doesn't have enough substance. I'm guessing most of you read it on your phone, so I also want to make sure this flows quickly. Some of you prefer the preambles over the links while some tell me to shorten the opening. I try to mix it up to keep everyone happy. Either way, I do very little editing. Good or bad, you usually get my first draft -- otherwise this would just take way too long.I often tell people that what has helped me keep this from consuming too much of my time is frequent writing. I've always enjoyed writing -- I cannot remember it ever being laborious for me. Interestingly though, one of the best things I ever did to sharpen my writing was get on Twitter. The original 140 character limit forced me to think about word choice and be succinct in my points of view. When they doubled the character limit to 280, it almost felt like cheating. And while, for a number of reasons, I find myself posting less on my Twitter feed these days (I am sharing more on LinkedIn), I still think it is a great tool if you are interested in quickly sharing thoughts or content to a larger audience.Moving forward, as more people jump into the gig economy and the static resume goes the way of the dinosaur, effective personal branding and marketing is going to crucial. The most effective (and longest lasting) way to market your expertise and interests will be through content creation -- not some Word doc you dust off and update whenever you look to change firms. Every single one of you reading this has an interesting story and set of experiences. And I guarantee you there is an audience that can learn from them. It is so easy to publish content on LinkedIn, Medium or Wordpress -- I urge you to start by trying to get into the habit of proactively writing your thoughts down more often. Like working out, at first it may feel tedious or time consuming. Don't worry about how many likes or shares you get or how many people read it. Do it for you. As you get into a rhythm, it gets easier and takes less time -- trust me. In the process, you will learn a lot about yourself, your talents, and you will be able to construct a more effective outline of the chapters of your personal and professional story.Finally, if you are reluctant to start a blog, a newsletter or post on social media because you think it will take too much time, I call BS. You have the time. Writing up to 280 characters on Twitter a few times a week does not take very long. Don't look at it as a chore -- look at it as an investment in yourself. And when you do get it going, please be sure to send me a link (or links), because I'd love to read what you have to say.With that, I have gone over my 800 word limit, so we will end the preamble there. Enjoy the last weekend in July(!) -- hard to believe school starts up in just 5 weeks!XOXODave