Brandon GeorgeCreative Director Start Something

← Dispatches Good Press · tool two Free Nothing to sign up for

The Headline of Your Life

Write the headline before you live the story.

Good Press's first step, run on your own life. Free, no signup, prints on one page.

Good Press starts every job the same way. Before anybody builds anything, find out whether there's a story in it, then write the headline first. It works on a launch. It works on a year of your life.

Write the headline before you live the story.

Pick the thing you want to be true a year from today. Run it past five questions, the ones from Hook Check that translate to a life. Then write it the way a reporter would: your name, third person, the most interesting thing in the fewest words. It sets the result on a front page dated a year out. Print it. Put it where you'll see it every morning. Then go make it true.

The story

"Ran a marathon" is a story. "Got healthier" is a press release.

Is it news?

Five of Good Press's questions, run on a life. You need one honest yes. Two is a campaign.

01 Is it unusual?

If ten people you know could say the same thing a year from now, what's true of yours and nothing else?

02 Will it change something for somebody besides you?

Name who wakes up to a different day. If the honest answer is 'mostly me,' that's inside stuff.

03 Have you never done it before?

Anywhere, ever. Doing it again, better, is a different question.

04 Does it have emotional appeal?

Moving, funny, or inspiring. Pick one and commit.

05 Will it visibly cost you something?

Nobody shares a claim. People share proof. Sleep, nerve, money, pride: if it costs you nothing anyone can see, add the cost.

Answer the five and the verdict lands here.

Write it down

  • State the most interesting thing in as few words as possible.
  • Write it from the reporter's side. Your name, never I or we.
  • No breakthrough, unique, state-of-the-art, revolutionary, or any of their cousins.

The front page

The Good Fight

One year from todayVol. I · No. 1Filed today

Your headline goes here

The deck goes under it.

Your town — The story you named, the way it happened.

Your answers live in the address bar, not on a server. Nothing you type here leaves your browser.

Want somebody to run the whole method on your thing? Start something. Want the method itself? Good Press, free.