In case you missed our “warmup” last month, this is the official kickoff for our 2017 Content Excellence Challenge.
January resolutions are fine, but we’re more interested in helping you make consistent, ongoing improvement.
Every month, we’ll give you a pair of prompts that we can all work on together as a community.
- The first prompt each month will be creative — prompts intended to improve your craft.
- The second will be productive — prompts intended to improve your productivity.
We’d love to have you join us for every pair of prompts, but of course you’re always welcome to jump on and off the bus as you need to. All progress is good progress!
January’s Creative Prompt: Headlines
This month, we’re going to work on headlines.
Copyblogger has been known for advice about headlines from the beginning, and headlines continue to be a “Basic” that pays major dividends.
As we work together to create stronger and more powerful content this year, it just makes sense to give each piece the attention it deserves by pairing it with a solid headline.
Well-crafted headlines will get you more shares and traffic. They make it easier for more people to click through to your work. They can make a massive difference in the impact your content makes.
Your task:
Brainstorm 20 or 30 headlines for a significant piece of content you’re intending to create in the next few weeks. Try to incorporate as many ideas as you can from the resources below.
Resources:
- Pick up our Magnetic Headlines ebook (it’s free and part of a whole library of content marketing ebooks for you)
- My favorite “cheat” for headlines — the Cosmo Headline Technique
- Brian Clark on why you should always write your headline first
Each day for the rest of this month, come up with two or three more headline ideas. They can be for any piece of content you might want to create — a blog post, an infographic, a podcast episode, whatever. If you gather them in a notebook or an app, you’ll be able to turn back to this list any time you’re stuck for ideas.
January’s Productivity Prompt: Decide tomorrow’s creative priority today
This is one I’ve been playing with, and it’s a quick habit that works amazingly well. This is particularly powerful for creative work, but it’s also a nice “hack” for any challenging task.
Your task:
Decide tomorrow’s creative priority today. Every day, take a few minutes to decide on your next day’s most important creative task, and get it into your calendar. When possible, schedule it “first thing” on that calendar.
Here’s the twist on this dusty old productivity tip:
Make this decision relatively early in the day. Before lunch is a good time.
We’ve all heard a million times that we should plan out our following day. But in the evenings, we’re exhausted, our willpower is depleted, and we just want to wind down. If you plan tomorrow’s priority before lunch today, you’ll be able to put your full creative energy into the decision.
Decision-making uses a lot of willpower and mental energy. So do it while you’re still fresh.
The task should be something you can work on for one or two “pomodoros” — 25-minute chunks. If you have more time to devote to your task, that’s terrific. But even a single pomodoro a day can yield astonishing results, if the time is focused and you’re working on the right thing. That’s why you make the decision the day before, rather than on the fly.
Some possible tasks you could decide to work on tomorrow:
- Writing a blog post
- Planning an infographic
- Doing in-depth research for a larger piece of content
- Working on a book
- Planning themes for a content calendar
- Brainstorming a big stack of headlines for the January challenge
If it needs focus and creativity, it counts.
Resources:
- Some nice refinements on this idea on the Complice blog: “Frogs in tomato reduction”
- If you’re not familiar with the term pomodoro, here’s a primer: The Pomodoro Technique
The TL;DR version
Here’s the pocket version of the prompts:
- Creative: Work on your headlines. Brainstorm a big stack (at least 20–30) for an upcoming project, then add 2–3 headline ideas to your list every day.
- Productive: Decide on tomorrow’s highest-priority creative task today, before lunch. Do this every day.
Let us know what you’re doing with it!
If you’re joining us for this month’s challenge prompts, let us know how it’s going in the comments below. We love to hear about what you’re working on. 🙂
Reader Comments (15)
Hey Sonia,
Crafting the better headlines would be effective. Everyone should set some task to finish for a better output.
I would go with writing the blog posts and the infographics. The prompts of creative and productivity are really needed.
People need to get encouraged to develop their skills.
Thanks for sharing with us.
~Ravi
I love this idea of monthly prompts. It will really help me with my writing. My only concern is: I’m not notified when these posts are published, and I don’t see a way to subscribe anywhere. Is there a way to be notified when you publish the next month’s prompts? Thanks for creating this challenge Sonia!
I think, Annaliese, if you “Join the free training” block above, you will receive updates. I also drop Copyblogger’s feed in a feedly board so I don’t miss a post. Hope that helps.
Thanks for the challenge, Sonia. I brainstormed ideas for upcoming posts yesterday, but I agree that choosing the headlines can help me create a more focused plan. Since my site is fairly new, having a long list of headlines will keep me moving in the right direction.
Great! I do think you’ll find it’s a great blessing to have a stack of headlines handy when it’s time to sit down at your keyboard and get some content created.
Also be sure you’re following Brian’s posts on content strategy, because that will spark lots of ideas you can add to that headline stack …
Thanks for the prompts, Sonia. Question. I know there is no “right way” to do this. However, when writing the 20-30 headlines, am I seeking major changes?
Sometimes I find it is only a slight tweak, replacing one word or a rearrangement of the sequence of words. Other times it is pretty much a whole new headline.
In your experience, are both productive on the journey to find the killer headline?
You’re right — it’s often that one-word tweak that makes a massive difference. So yes, I think it counts. 🙂
When I do this exercise, I often end up with a bunch of different approaches, and then a few tweaks or shifts on individual attempts.
Great. That is exactly what is happening. Definitely, doing them “en masse” has generated some interesting leaps to ideas I never would have thought of otherwise.
I’m in! I’ll be beginning both the December and January challenges this month. Let’s make!
Hi Sonia,
I agree with you about the headlines & being creative as well as productive.
The thing I liked most, “Make this decision relatively early in the day. Before lunch is a good time.” I want to add that we should write a whole article at a single time. It makes a great copy because I’ve personally tried that.
I’ll definitely work on infographics too. It seems better to boost the content share.
Thanks for nice article.
Best regards,
Ankit
Well at first i was skeptical about following this platform on getting grounded in content creation but i said to myself; “just stick around, that won’t hurt”. I did, now i stuck here. I am very pleased with the different lectures that i have received especially from you Ms Sonia. I am grateful, as an advertiser on the INTERNET, i have gained a great deal and now my contents are more catchy, precise, sometimes simple but strong in drawing attention.. And yes i am going to take up the challenge. Thank you very much!!!
I am excited about this challenge! This is a great exercise for me to apply to my live streaming content which supports my written content.
I listened to your podcast about the challenge and came straight over to get the additional info and to let you know to count me in!
I started writing headlines in an Evernote notebook a few months ago and have continued the habit of writing down new headlines some of which have been added to my content calendar and have become Live videos.
Now I can go and re-work those headlines to make them stronger with all the tips & resources you left here. Nice!
I started the Content Challenge warm-up last month, and I am thrilled with this new installation.
I find it difficult to write headlines first. But, after reading Brian’s article you linked to, it makes perfect sense. Without the promise to keep trying to fulfill, the content I write can tend to become fluffy and not direct. I’ll be taking this challenge and crafting headlines first from now on.
Also, I listened or read something you wrote awhile ago about using index cards to capture ideas and then transferring them to a more permanent location. I think that tool would be a great strategy to employ in this challenge.
Good challenge.
I’m in.
I’ve been focusing on scheduling the creative work first thing in the morning and it really does work better. I’ve also found that writing out my three most important goals for the week and then daily (the night before) in my journal really works.
Thanks.
Great! I haven’t had a lot of time lately, but headlines are something I desperately need to work on.
I mean, they look okay when they come out on paper. But when you consider the fact that it might have taken me HOURS to write a headline, well…
I sat there and watched my editor crank out 20 ridiculously awesome headlines in the time that it take me to do, I don’t know, five?
But I’m sure we’ve all been there. 😉
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