Content Creation

I struggled for a decade to be a creator without a creative practice Instead of practising daily, the only time I switched on my creativity was when I needed to produce something. No wonder I struggled for so long!

Three years ago I was desperate to build a consistent writing practice.

One daily habit pulled me out of years of inconsistency as a creator... Establishing a Daily Spark Writing Practice.

Content is simply the communication of ideas.Lots of people have ideas, but if you can't communicate them well all those amazing ideas are going to get lost in translation.So communication is the real game of content creation.

If weekly content planning always feels like a big lift to you, try breaking down your planning into phases instead.

Most creators don't need more ideas. What they need is to extract more from the ideas they already have

Constraints are a creative person's best friend.Most of us live in hope that if we can throw off the constraints of our life we'll finally reach peak creativity. We dream about quitting our job, going full time - thinking no constraints are the answer.But maybe constraints are a feature & not a bug for our creativity?

The common wisdom tells us we should focus & work on one thing at a time. So we dutifully create perfect content calendars for our creative work, and expect our creative spirit to fall in line with what we’ve planned.

On any one day I can have anywhere from 7-10 content ideas in different stages that I can choose to work on.Now usually, I'm a fan of focusing on just one thing. But not when it comes to content ideas. I find if I lock myself into working on just one thing my creative spirit rebels.So I like to have options.

I write much more for myself than I ever do for you (sorry, but not sorry).That's right, what you read on my feed or my blog or my newsletter is only a small fraction of what I actually write each day.

As digital writers and creators, we have an opportunity that almost no other writer in the past has had. We get to write with our audience. We don't have to hide away and write in a cabin in the woods hoping that all our hard work will resonate.

I never try and push out content. If I don't feel the spark, I find something else to work on.

I've been writing & publishing content daily for 2 years now. My Secret?I only work on easy content ideas that I am insanely interested in.

I'm logged off from my full-time job for the next 3 and a half weeks 🙌And while I love my job, as a part-time creator times like these are bliss. No juggling commitments, just lots of time & space to work on 'creator things.'

Let me tell you a story that might help you understand me a little better. I failed maths in my senior year (year 12 in Australia). Not because I'm bad at maths, but because my maths teacher couldn't explain to me how I would use Differential Calculus & the Second Derivative in real life.

I've been struggling to write and create content lately. Oh, you didn't notice (or maybe you did)? I'm good at hiding it. I mean I have put content out there - but haphazardly. I have ideas, but every time I sit down to write and publish I'm blocked.

Do you find it hard to get anything done if you have a meeting scheduled in the middle of your morning? You're probably a maker (I find most creative people are). And the problem is that most of us creatives work with a bunch of managers who can compartmentalise their day into one-hour chunks.

I hate the word 're-purpose' when it comes to content creation. It makes me cringe so hard. The thing is the tools we use to make it really easy to create one piece of content, press a button and then spray it all over the internet. I call this the spray & pray method.

Today I want to show you how I capture ideas in Tana and use Supertags to make it easy to add fields and default content specific to certain content types. So rather than having a bunch of fields that are not applicable to certain content, you can add only the ones you need. Plus I'll show you how you can powerful search and filter through all your ideas.

Do you prep for your creator week?

I've been a bit quiet lately. If you've been missing the yellow essays of late, there's a good reason why... I haven't been posting them. The simple answer is... I've been in THE DIP. I'm pretty sure Seth Godin termed the phrase, but it's something that every creative person is familiar with and faces at some point (multiple points). Everything feels hard, everything is a push uphill.

There are so many different ways to come up with ideas for content as a creator.Depending on who you follow, you'll find so many good frameworks, templates & tools for brainstorming content. Leverage your expertise, learn & document, have content buckets, answer questions, curate content, use AI to brainstorm your content.

A lot of people ask me how I can fit everything I do as a creator into my life while holding down a full-time job. But when I look at my schedule it's an easy fit. I wake up early, I don't have kid commitments, I don't commute to an office, I watch very little Netflix.

I held myself back for so many years from jumping into the creator economy because I didn’t feel like an ‘expert.’ Even though anyone can turn on a camera or put words on a page we still have this mindsset that we must have something expert to say before we do.

AI is the future of content apparently. A few weeks ago I had an employee who submitted some email copy to me that just seemed off. The assignment was simple, take a podcast that was already produced and repurpose it into written email copy. She’s an experience content writer so I asked her about it.

When you've been writing for any amount of time you'll be guaranteed to come up against the 'I have nothing to write' days.I've got a pretty good pile of ideas that I keep on the go, but even then I experience these days like everyone else where I just can't seem to get the words out in the way I want to get them out.

Mastering writing templates will supercharge your productivity as a creator But most creators I know never take the time to create any. For the past year, I’ve published over 300 essays & articles, thousands of tweets & a weekly newsletter while still having a full-time job. People often ask me how I can produce so much with so little time and the answer is — I use templates for everything.

Consistency is a skill... One I thought I'd never build. Until I did. If you want to be more consistent as a creator, read on. I spent years beating myself up for not being consistent as a creator (& I still beat myself up for going months between Youtube videos!). The only place I've found consistency is here on Twitter... where I show up everyday, here's a few of my secrets to consistency.

Most creators let their best content get lost in social media feeds never to be seen again. Rather than simply throwing your content into the stream of social media feeds to let it drift away into the anals of the algorithm, what if you could build a library of leveraged content. Here's how...

It seems everyone is about content marketing these days... 10 Years ago I was banging on to business owners about content marketing. To me, it seemed so simple. Create content, attract an audience of loyal people, and they buy from you as a result.

My coffee machine broke on the weekend and it's completely disrupted my writing routine. You see every morning I have exactly the same ritual. Wake up. Make Coffee. Sit down and write. It's my favourite time of the day. But now it just feels like something is off.

One of the best things I learned when I was a new online writer was the art of writing ugly words on a page.You might not think there is an art to writing ugly words, but let me tell you there is. Most people are afraid of ugly words.

All the normal indicators would suggest I don't suffer from Imposter Syndrome... I don't have a fear of putting my ideas out there, I'm OK to make mistakes publicly & even change my mind on occasion. And I certainly don't suffer from perfectionism in any way.

Every Sunday after I've done my meal prep for the week, I do my creator prep. Just like a chef might sit down and prepare the menu for the following day or week, I sit down and prepare my menu for the week. Rather than run around each day like a crazy person in my creator kitchen, I take the time to prepare the menu & my ingredients so I can gracefully and effortlessly push out plate after plate of content.

Despite pumping out generous amounts of content everyday I don't work to a content calendar. In the marketing world, content calendars are king. Because you have a product that needs selling. But as a creator, I AM THE PRODUCT. I can afford to be more curious, to follow my interests and the signals that come back on the content I produce.

Can I tell you a secret 🤫 No one cares about your effort. They care about your output. So why do we feel the need to make things hard for ourselves? Like making it harder for ourselves means more. But no one is giving you a gold sticker at the end of the day for your effort.

You might not believe me but I used to be very unsure of myself. Whenever I walked into a room I thought everyone else was better than me, knew more than me, or was wayyy further ahead than me. Writing & creating online changed that. I'm more confident about who I am, what I believe & what I put out into the world. And people have noticed.

I'm fanatical about showing up daily. I wholeheartedly believe the more you show up the better you'll become. Not because you do the same thing over again, but because each time you do it you learn and adjust.