How To Swap Your Blank Screen For A Content Bank Overflowing With Ideas

Even after 10+ years as a content marketer, I still hate that moment at the start of the week when I’m staring down the barrel of a blank screen, wondering what to post.

So I swapped a blank screen for a 🏦 Content Bank full of ideas.

I spend my week filling up my content bank with ideas so instead of walking into a planning session feeling bankrupt & broke. I just open up my content bank & make withdrawals.

It’s lots of little easy moves, so I don’t have to make one big, hard move.

And we’re all content creators. We all know how to write an idea down when we have it. But can you do that on tap, every single day, without running out?

That takes more than just waiting for inspiration to strike. That takes intentionally putting yourself in the flow of ideas.

So here are three different ways I expose myself to that constant flow of ideas so I can fill up my bank.

Spark Writing ⚡️

As creators it can feel like we’re under constant pressure to create ‘content’ & so we rarely write unless it is to produce something. This is the WORST way to have free-flowing ideas.

My Spark Writing habit each morning allows me to write & explore ideas without the pressure of needing it to be anything.

I sit down, I pull out a note, I explore & write about it.

And here’s the funny thing about this method: The more I explore my ideas enthusiastically WITHOUT the pressure of content. The more ideas for content flow.

And so I add any ideas that come up during those sessions to the bank.

Remix Writing 🔄

👉 Spark writing is a bottom-up approach — where ideas & content bubble up.

👉 Remix writing is a top-down approach. Where you take one long-form piece of content and break it down into short-form content ideas.

Neither is right or wrong. We need both if we want to keep our content bank full.

So once a week I take my newsletter content & mine it for ideas.

This isn’t random ‘repurposing.’ I’m intentional & specific about what I need to extract. Specifically, I want to extract:

👉 6x Tweets

👉 3x Long Form Tweet Ideas

👉 3x Short-Form Video Ideas

These 12 pieces of content alone give me all the content I need for the upcoming week.

How To Turn 1x Idea Into More Ideas

But how do you actually turn one idea into a brand new fresh idea? I have a few frameworks I use that you might find helpful:

1. Zoom In On A Particular Point. Look at your idea and see if you can dig deeper into one particular point. That might be a post on it's own. For instance I could dig in further to any of the three points I shared above.
2. Write from a different perspective. Think about how you would write your idea for a specific person (let's say an employee versus a solopreneur). How would that angle change your idea. Write about that.
3. Change Tact. There are many ways you can share ideas. Some people like to share advice & observations, others prefer to break down a process or share specific how to tips. Whatever tact you take on an idea, try to take an opposite tact & find a new way to express the idea.
4. Questions. I will often look for question on my posts in order to dive deeper into something that might have been unclear or I could explore further.

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These are just a handful of prompts I use to help me turn my ideas into an endless flow of content. I actually created a whole toolkit full of over 130+ prompts to help you expand your ideas. It's called the Spark Toolkit and you can grab it here.

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This combined with the content that has bubbled up from spark writing means my content bank is OVERFLOWING by this point.

But then I take it one step further….

Signal Gathering 📡

As digital writers we have the unfair advantage of receiving almost instant feedback from our audience on the content that resonates the most.

Your best tweets deserve more airtime.

So I use a concept I came up with called the Endless Tweet Generator method to turn my best tweets into more content.

***It’s so simple, it’s stupid. But it works:***👉 Take your top 5 performing tweets from the previous week and create 3x new variations.

💥 And BOOM you just added 15+ more ideas to the content bank!

You don’t need to start from scratch each week staring at a blank screen when you sit down to plan your content.

Focus on some key activities where content can bubble up from, fill your bank and create a flow of ideas that builds over time.

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Whenever You're Ready To Turn Your Information Chaos Into An Powerful Personal Knowledge System. Here Are Three Ways I Can Help:

1. Each Sunday I send a newsletter with a simple, actionable framework to help you turn your personal knowledge into powerful ideas. You can subscribe here.
2. Need a system to help you get content system organised? Check out my Content OS template.
3. If you feel like you're coming up short when trying to repurpose your content grab my Spark Toolkit - 130+ prompts & frameworks to help you expand your ideas & create unlimited content.

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