When we first start coming up with content ideas, we have the best of intentions.
We’re going to publish more frequently.
Create a content marketing strategy. Stick to a schedule. And, of course, make sure all of it is high-quality stuff that people actually want to read.
The first week or two are good … and then …
You fire up your WordPress dashboard. You click to add a post. And you spend more time than you want to admit staring at that depressing expanse of blank white space.
You’re out of article ideas. You don’t know how to overcome writer’s block or where to get an idea. And you really, really don’t want to write this $%&# post today.
It sucks — but it rarely happens to folks who write for a living.
And that’s because professional writers have a “secret weapon” tucked into their toolbox that you don’t have. But you can get it … today, if you want to.
That “weapon” is a solid, reliable process for capturing interesting thoughts as they float past your head.
Because the best way to have more ideas is to capture more ideas.
How to capture more creative content ideas
When you capture as many creative content ideas as you can on the fly, you’ll find that your brain starts to make more ideas.
It’s like there’s a part of your brain (Stephen King talks about the muse in the basement) that has the job of coming up with ideas.
“Hmm, it seems my person is very interested in ideas these days. I’d better start making more of them.” β The muse in the basement
Some of your ideas will be total garbage. Not a problem. Capture them anyway. A few of the really stupid ideas will turn out to be the seeds of something interesting. And the rest won’t do any harm sitting there in your system.
If you want a fun, creative jumpstart, challenge yourself to write down 10 blog post ideas today. Give yourself permission to include the wildly stupid ones. Do that for a week.
At the end of the week, you’ll have a bunch of okay ideas, a few nutty ones, and a couple of gems.
Do it for a month to feel a genuine shift in your creative productivity and how you face writer’s block. Plus, it’s easy and fun to capture 10 ideas a day.
Different writers approach this task in different ways, but nearly all professional writers have trusted systems that let them catch that lightning in a bottle.
Here are some options.
Option #1: The notebook or bullet journal
Some of us just really dig paper and pen.
I use a hardcover bullet journal to keep track of what I need to do, when I need to do it, and the tools or resources I need to get it done. And I keep a running list of ideas for all kinds of content — from lesson ideas for courses, to blog post ideas, to topics for video ads.
It’s also a great place to doodle, scribble with colored pencils, and use a half-dozen different fountain pens (all running different colored ink).
Some people have gorgeous Instagram-ready bullet journals with fancy headers and beautifully designed “spreads.” I have the other kind. My notebook is ink-splattered, coffee-stained, scribbled, lumpy, and defiantly messy. Just like (in my opinion) a creative journal should be.
A writer’s notebook is like a painter’s sketchbook. It’s a place to hold ideas, develop them, capture new ones, and spark experiments and creative connections. You can even brainstorm and take notes about how to create digital products related to your blog.
It’s not a place to hold yourself to an unreachable standard of perfection … although if you want to practice your calligraphy in there, go for it.
If you use a physical book to capture content ideas, it’s helpful to have a way to find them quickly again. I use a dedicated color of washi tape to mark my “Content Ideas” pages. Colored post-it flags would work well, also.

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Option #2: The index card
My friend, speaking coach Victoria Labalme, is a big proponent of the index card. It’s flexible, it’s super portable, and you can shuffle and shift them around when you’re planning out your content.
She uses them to plan out presentations and talks (in other words, complex, long-form content), and I find them particularly well-suited to that. The ability to spread the cards out on your desk or floor, and rearrange them over and over, works really well for complex projects.
They’re also just handy to make stray notes about blog post introductions and creative content ideas. I keep a few index cards tucked into a wallet or bag if I don’t feel like carrying my notebook somewhere. It’s a great way to catch fleeting ideas … no matter where I am.
Option #3: The phone app
Most of us, of course, carry a pocket computer around that can be an excellent tool for idea capture.
There’s one kind of idea that I’ll tend to put into a digital format (I happen to use Evernote, but use any app you like): an idea, reference, or resource that I’ll want to refer to later.
URLs are obviously easier to capture (not to mention click-through) digitally rather than writing them out.
This category includes things like ideas for courses (or lessons within courses), series or ebook ideas, useful reference materials, and potential cornerstone content ideas that I want to explore in the future.
Option #4: The giant bag of content ideas
One nice thing about digital tools is that they make it easy to switch between devices.
Evernote makes it easy for me to grab an idea on my phone — in text, audio, or a quickly snapped photo — then bring it up on my laptop when I’m ready to start working.
Evernote becomes my “giant bag of content ideas,” with all kinds of connections, links, sparks, and tangents. Like my bullet journal, it’s messy, with minimal formal structure.
Unlike my bullet journal, it’s very easy to find things again when I need to.
Option #5: The ninja version
So, do I recommend physical capture with ink on paper or digital capture into an app?
Actually, I think for many of us, especially as you learn how to make money as a freelance writer, there’s a lot to be gained by combining the two.
The process of making words with ink has a kind of magic in it. There’s richness that comes from slowing down and thinking through the words — even if it’s just a rough-idea capture.
Paper and pen is also the lowest-friction way to create simple drawings, diagrams, and mind maps. No software to launch, no learning curve to master.
That’s all wonderful while you’re a beginner blogger filling your first creative journal. But trying to find a specific idea in a stack of physical books isn’t pretty. (That’s also why I prefer to just keep one hardbound journal going at a time.)
For me, the answer is to have a reliable, consistent process for moving “long term” ideas from their first capture point to their permanent home.
You can think of it as an idea sanctuary. You capture them out in the wild, however it happens to work for you in that moment, and then you systematically move them to a digital system that allows for immediate — and permanent — access.
Common sense is your friend here. Your to-do list for this week doesn’t need to go into permanent idea storage. But the running list of blog post topics should probably get updated to your digital system once a week or so.
A reliable method for consistently finding winning content ideas for your blog
When selecting your next content idea to write about after using the system described above, you’ll often find that the challenge is rarely finding a topic; itβs narrowing down which ideas you should develop and which you should discard.
So, letβs review the basic law of business blogging:
You have to just start.
In other words, the best content ideas are uncovered once you start blogging. The same insights wonβt be available to you if you keep ideas in your head or delay publishing posts because youβre waiting until theyβre βperfect.β
You still need to push yourself creatively and refine your content into the best presentation possible — just donβt get too hung up on one blog post.
A blog post is not an encyclopedia entry, nor should it be.
A regular blogging practice holds the answers to many content marketing questions youβre wondering about:
- What does my target audience need help with?
- Why would they read/listen to/watch my content?
- What type of evergreen content can I provide that you canβt find elsewhere?
- How much should I charge for my products and services?
- Where should I promote my content?
When you build relationships with your audience members, they guide you to your next steps.
Your content ideas evolve naturally as you write and publish, and write and publish, and write and publish …
Your competitors canβt duplicate this work
So, when you have a content idea, start with these three steps:
- Review your blog to see if youβve covered a similar topic before.
- Did it resonate with your audience? If so, it should be a great topic to explore more. If not, do you have room for improvement in a new post?
- If youβve never written about the topic before, try it out. Thereβs no substitute for that writing practice, and at the very least, youβll have new content on your site.
You might even post about a topic 10 times before you decide you donβt want to write about it anymore.
None of those content experiments are a waste; itβs all part of the process of uncovering the winners.
Plus, a piece of content you might initially view as βunsuccessfulβ could be the exact post that attracts a new group of readers months down the line.
Youβll never know unless the content is on your site.
Ultimately, your competitors donβt have access to:
- The relationships you have with your audience members
- The experience you gain from publishing
Monitor how your audience responds to your written content, and then you can also repurpose your best work to reach more people through podcast episodes or videos.
More chances to introduce new people to your content
Youβre so familiar with your blog posts that itβs easy to get into the habit of saying, βIβve already written about that topic,β and move on to search for new ideas.
After all, you donβt want to be repetitive.
But a topic is not off limits after the first time youβve covered it. You can make it a category you write about regularly to make your blog a resource on the topic. Any one of those articles could be the one that introduces new readers to your site.
For example, you may have five bullet points in a post you wrote last week. Could each of those bullet points become an individual blog post?
New readers then have a chance of discovering your original article with the five bullet points, or any of the five more in-depth articles.
Pair your new content with sensible SEO, and search engines now have more content to serve up that lead people to your website. You’ll also have more content for readers to share on social media.
5 content types that help fill your editorial calendar
Now that we know how blogging regularly can help generate remarkable content ideas, letβs look at five specific ways you can fill up your editorial calendar.
If you donβt have a lot of content on your website yet, the first three types will be particularly useful.
1. Schedule “recurring sketches”
When a particular set of characters resonate with viewers on a comedy series such as Saturday Night Live, the writers bring them back in future skits.
Think of “Hans and Franz” or “The Californians.”
Since they were hits in the past, no one tunes out and thinks, βWeβve seen these characters before.β They tune in and think, βWe get to see these funny characters in different situations.β
What types of series would work on your blog?
2. Reveal the next part of your story
Every blog post is a piece in your content marketing strategy puzzle.
Thatβs why each one you write doesnβt have to be as comprehensive as an encyclopedia entry.
You have opportunities to both experiment with your own new ideas and give your audience any expert guidance they request.
- What havenβt you revealed yet?
- What do readers ask you?
- What have you learned since your last post?
3. Rotate through set content topics
If you write one blog post a week, you can decide on a topic for each week of a month and then repeat them to build up the content on your website.
For example, if you run a bakery, you can set content topics that you repeat every four weeks:
- Week 1: Muffin topics
- Week 2: Croissant topics
- Week 3: Jam topics
- Week 4: Cookie topics
Youβll likely change these initial categories as your blog evolves and you find out what readers want to hear about the most, but setting these go-to topics gives you direction when youβre wondering how to start writing and publishing regularly.
4. Promote older content to your current audience
Once your audience has grown, you can also promote your older, evergreen content on social media or through curated posts on your blog.
An article you wrote five years ago is “new” to the person who reads it for the first time today. If you discover it connects with your current audience, expand on the topic in a new post.
Remember, donβt be afraid of being repetitive. Your new post will provide updated information, and even if you mention pointers youβve given before, we all need reminders.
Advice you previously shared could easily touch a reader in a more profound way when they hear it again later.
5. Optimize old headlines and republish
A new headline might engage someone who has skipped over your content in the past.
For example, three months ago, Rachel Reader may have seen one of your headlines on Twitter. It didnβt interest her, so she didnβt check it out. That was a shame, because the article contained the exact information she wanted …
When you republish the post today, with a damn good headline that piques Rachel’s interest, sheβll click on the article and discover your website.
If you’re crunched for time and aren’t feeling super creative, consider optimizing headlines you’ve already published and republishing them to see if they hook new readers.
Why you’re missing out if you save your best content ideas
Imagine this, if you will …
An old woman, near the end of her life. Shivering in a fleabag apartment without heat in the winter. Walking four miles each way to the food bank, to carry home unmarked cans of mystery meat.
Not even a cat to keep her company, because cat food is expensive.
Then one day she dies, and the neighbors find $2.7 million wadded up in her mattress.
It’s a natural human impulse to hold on to what we have. We figure we can handle whatever discomforts we might be facing now, and who knows how bad it could get down the line?
So we hoard, saving up our riches for some mythical later time.
What does this have to do with content ideas?
Everyone who learns how to be a freelance writer faces this at some point. We come up with a powerful idea, something we think will capture a lot of attention.
This is the kind of content we know we need to grow our blog and our business.
So of course we can’t waste it on our measly 300 subscribers (or 100, or 12).
We start scheming about how we can make it a guest post on a site with a huge audience, or convince an influencer to link to it.
We scribble our great idea on a Post-it so we remember to write it up when we hit some magic number of subscribers — 500 or 1,000 or 10,000.
The Post-it gets dusty.
We never hit that magic number. Because we took our best content ideas and stuffed them into a mattress.
We don’t think our small audience is good enough for amazing content, so we never get a larger audience.
The muse is spiteful
Your muse is a fascinating creature, but she is not necessarily very nice. If she sends you a killer idea and you don’t do anything with it, she can get downright mean.
She’ll stop sending you great stuff, because you blew her off last time.
Your muse doesn’t care if you’re a flake about your mortgage or your job or that 10 pounds you’re trying to lose.
But if you’re a flake about your writing, she’ll turn a cold, cold shoulder.
She’s volatile and she has a damned bad temper. So frankly, you need to humor her a little.
(If this sounds like a drag, sorry. Welcome to the life of a person who creates something out of nothing. You always figured there had to be a catch — well, this is it.)
When your muse sends you an amazing idea, you have to do something with it.
If at all possible, sit down and write up the idea as soon as it comes to you.
If that’s not an option, at least capture the idea and scribble down any details you find exciting. Try thinking of a couple of good subheads.
Then schedule creative time when you can focus on how to write a good blog post.
Ideas go stale quickly. Get to your keyboard and get that post written as soon as you can manage it.
Get more value out of your best content ideas
Instead of saving your best work for later, get the most out of them today with these additional content ideas.
Create a series
Spend a few minutes mind-mapping, and come up with five or seven spin-off ideas based on that original post.
A fascinating content series is a tremendous traffic builder, even more so when it starts with a strong concept.
You might try putting a well-selected, relevant keyword phrase in the title of each post to start collecting search engine traffic.
Expand it as a free ebook
Then offer it as a bonus for subscribing to your email list.
Be sure to put the blog’s URL in the footer of the ebook, so when it gets passed along, new readers know where to find you.
You don’t even necessarily have to expand the content a lot — just format it nicely in a PDF.
Offer it as a guest post … this week
A lot of us get hung up on pitching guest posts to the biggest sites.
We get all worked up trying to figure out how to attract the attention of the big guys.
That’s all good and well, but when you’re just starting out, don’t overlook guest posting opportunities that are closer to your blog in size.
As a rule of thumb, look for blogs with anything from the same number of subscribers you have to two-to-three times your numbers.
To keep procrastination from doing you in, write the post first, then figure out who to pitch it to.
You can always tweak it to suit your host blog’s readership … just follow guest posting best practices and offer it to bloggers in your topic until you find a good fit.
Hoarding content ideas is the same as throwing them away
Sometimes you’ll have magnificent ideas that are too far off topic, or too personal to share with the big wide world.
Or, even worse, they’re perfect for that next project you have planned, and you don’t want to waste them on the project you’re working on now.
Write them up anyway, even if they never get posted. You don’t have to post every great idea you have, and you probably shouldn’t. But you can’t hoard your best stuff, either.
Your reputation is being built based on what you’re doing now.
Grandiose schemes for what you’ll create when you have a gorgeous new design, a wise and loving mentor, enough time to work on your true life’s work … are just that: schemes.
Your imagination is part of your greatest wealth, but imagination without action is a drug that will waste away the best part of your life.
Don’t save your best content ideas for later. You might not get any later.
Put your sharpest, most glorious work out now, and your spiteful muse will turn into a trustworthy ally.
Reader Comments (81)
This is super. Great tips for actually using all those great ideas I let go everyday, thinking I’ll save it for later or something better. So much wasted content… Thanks!
— Maria Reyes-McDavis
This is really good advice – thank you for the article. I hadn’t thought about scribbling down a few subheads in my recording process. I’m pretty good about capturing the raw idea, but without the subhead notes I often forget what my scribblings actually meant in my head at the time.
And thanks for the advice on blog size to target. I’ve had a few health and fitness posts on larger blogs, but rarely do I target blogs of my size. That is going to change. Thanks!
Excellent post! I was having trouble getting to sleep last night because I had not one, but TWO separate blog post ideas brewing in my head. Got to get them down on paper…
Really nice post, I think the best option is making it a guest post. This may help building links and increase in subscriptions.
Great post, Sonia.
One quibble– no one could possibly stuff $2.7 million in cash into a mattress.;-)
People run out of ideas only when they run out of breath. Just write, it’s a bottomless well. Make every day your best. If you’re not constantly giving your best, then you’re not improving, and if your not improving, what’s the point?
At this rate, I don’t think I’d ever stop writing —
Sonia, Nice post, It applies to everything and not just blogs. It applies to a wannbe entrepreneur who is waiting for an opportunity. Often, opportunity is now.
I think I hear my muse laughing in the background some where.
What was that guest post for copyblogger she gave me a couple of weeks ago? Something about love.
Great reminders, especially about the Muse’s temperament, and to borrow/paraphrase from one of Darren’s earlier posts, that’s the great thing about the drafts feature…you can at least outline those ideas when they hit you for reworking and posting.
Actually, i am hoarding alot of articles and ideas today since i dont know if i can still post new ideas if i give it in one shot still thanks for your post and i might go for a research about this for one month.
I will try to see if which is better hoarding ideas or giving them out in one shot.
The preamble story grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.
Great ideas! Thanks!
Squiddo here I come.
Great post. The rich get richer. Good ideas beget better ideas… classic
Sonia, I can’t agree with you more that keeping your own ideas close to home is an instinct that all of us (or at least myself) have.
I think the key is to get over the hurdle of “this content can only help me.” Once you realize that a guest post can benefit both parties, as well as form some great relationships, sharing becomes much easier. π
It’s easier said than done, but i’m definitely going to give this mentality a try!
Sonia — This is right on! I’ve also lost great ideas because I didn’t jot them down when the flash hit me, and then couldn’t remember later.
I’m off to put one of my moldering ideas into print.
Thanks for the wake-up!
Joan
“Hoarding ideas is the same as throwing them away.”
I’m going to put THAT on a post-it right next to my computer!
@Vince, heh. I did think about that briefly, but poetry won over practicality. For storytelling purposes, let’s say they were 30s-issued 1000-dollar bills. π
@Harish, I agree. The more you give (not spend, necessarily, but give), the more you get. It’s scary but exhilarating.
@Ron, she’ll forgive ya. Eventually. Go write it up. π
@John Young, great way to frame it–“this content can only help me.” Nice.
@ Sonia – You had your mojo going on when you wrote this one. I loved the first half. You’re damned right about that.
This is such a great post – going to link to you from my own blog section on Writing for the Web. Thanks for reminding all of us that all our great ideas are no good if we don’t share them!
Muses, mojo, mattress stuffing millions…..
Bookmarked, big time…
(Brilliant of you to make out my to do list for me. π )
You’ve just described a situation that is very me! Ok…got it…will get to reworking some of my best articles for submission to other sites. Thanks for the reminder!
Evelyn
I’m a big believer in publishing your current BEST stuff FIRST. NOW.
Here’s the rub… To attract those 500 subscribers, you’re going to need to publish stellar material again and again and again NOW… Once you have achieved 500 subscribers – you’re going to need to continue to post stellar material to KEEP them on board.
The truth is you need to write superlative material every time. When you’re a small blog. When you’re a medium blog. And when you’re a gigantic blog…
Got great stuff? Publish it NOW.
A great blog post is a terrible thing to waste.
“A great blog post is a terrible thing to waste.”
Chuckling….is that a tee shirt ? or a tagline?
It’s easy to forget, too, that it’s fine to repeat yourself. In fact, we have to repeat ourselves. Not excessively, but there’s nothing wrong with returning to certain strong ideas again and again. Sometimes the 10th time you riff on an idea is the time you really nail it.
Did Seth Godin pay you for this article?
Sqidoos and all..
That’s the story of my life. I’m still figuring out a way not to waste ideas. I’ve tried to walk around with a voice recorder but it haven’t worked out. I felt kind of silly talking to no one in the middle of the street, for example.
Matt, do you think comments like that are polite? Do you think they make you look cool? Do you think they make people like you?
Seth doesn’t need to pay us. Sonia does everything she advises in this post, and her only motivation is to share.
Oops, guess I forgot to tell Brian about the GIGANTIC CHECK I got from Seth Godin.
Hmm, the impulse to write something snarky is nigh irresistible. But no, Matt, I wrote about Squidoo because I’ve found it to be a quite handy little tool that gives nice rewards on one’s time. Especially if you actually put decent content into them.
@ Sonia – Did you frame it, at least?
Hey, hey..
No offense or critisism intended.
The direct link to Seth’s blog and the first time I have seen Squidoo mentioned outside of Seth’s Blog, both in the same article, raised my interest.
It was a serious, honest question. I’m not a copywriter and so probably misworded it. But come on Brian, you have just made some pretty offensive remarks to someone that you do not know based on your own misunderstandings…
Does not make me want to stick around.
@ Linda:
You write, “I felt kind of silly talking to no one in the middle of the street, for example.”
Nonsense, I do it all the time.
Well Matt, you own your words. If you didn’t mean to be rude, then I accept your explanation and apology.
But that doesn’t change the fact that “did Seth pay you” is not at all a polite way to ask a question. On it’s face, your intentions did not seem innocent at all, so I’m not sure I was at fault in “misunderstanding.”
This is super!!
congatulations!
This is definitely a bookmark worthy post – -love the ideas! It definitely is something that can help you from procrastinating!
It’s funny ’cause I was juggling exactly with this kind of thinking this week. My blog is pretty new, and I have a post that I want to write for quite a while, I have between 7 & 10 readers, and I was thinking about waiting to write it because I don’t have– like copyblogger 41066 subscribers…
Well I just want to say that I really like the quality content I found here (thanks Brian, Sonia Simone, James Chartran, & all the contributers).
I have been hanging here for about 2 months now, and it’s my first comment.
This is a great post and so true.
When I started blogging and being active on forums I was unselfish enough to just give every secret I had…every nugget of information…freely and without reservation.
For a while it seemed like no one was taking any notice…even when I was sharing genuine secrets that had been tested in the real world and produced real results…often quite startling results.
But then after a couple of years I noticed a trend.
People were starting to call me a “copywriting gun” or a “marketing great”.
My wife really hates that one and it’s appeared several times now!
Your suggestions about getting multiple use from your content are excellent.
And I have to just confirm what you’re telling people to do here really does work.
I remember quite a while back the first time I spent a full month actively sharing valuable information on every blog and forum I could (including my own blog) for a full month…
That month of activity brought in over $20,000 in business.
It pays to be generous
Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh
@ Jean – Γa me fait plaisir, et merci!
Oh great, Chartrand starts with the funny talk again.
I have it on good authority that he wears women’s underpants.
And I don’t mean just on the weekends.
π
You’re just jealous. And here I thought you were saying recently that we should all zig when others zag.
Ah, well!
He’s French, they have different rules. Vive la difference and all that.
That is great to hear, Jean–and good luck!
I love it, Andrew! It does take awhile to get rolling, and there’s that little voice that says, Am I being a chump? But then the thing gets some momentum, and you can’t stop it.
Brian. Dude.
…
Sheesh.
I’m at a loss for words. That was way too funny. Now see what you did? You found the one and only way to get me to poke my head out and comment.
Wooot… Dude you rock.. And i will definitely follow your way now…
Sonia, this was great.
It serves as motivation to get the most important ideas I have to share out there now, not later.
Personally, I’ve been struggling with how much to share, how soon with this brand new site linked – especially because at its core, there are a limited number of key ideas that I can share.
And being afraid of doing that without any immediate payoff is scary.
But knowing that it will serve as motivation to my spiteful muse is motivation enough for me.
So are you going to Disney World?
Excellent post. Thanks for the reminder to “share the love” NOW rather than later.
Donna Payne ~ The Web Coach
Good luck Jeremy! It *is* scary, I know.
If you share all your great content, does not mean you cannot build on it in other ways. We may blog on a great idea, but that doesn’t mean we don’t follow up as we build on it – in another blog, dedicated on a webpage, a podcast, etc.
Well said! I am sure that I am not the only one who has made that mistake of not getting an idea down quickly enough and losing it. But then there are those nights when I should have gone to bed hours ago but I can’t keep my fingers still as they dash arond the keyboard. i’ve just started to get into the habit of making lists of ideas, and i am looking forward to seeing where my blog is at a month or three months from now with regular updating.
Thanks for this great post. I needed to hear this. Saving content for some imagined better time is a fool’s scheme indeed, especially because it alienates our muse.
Thanks for the kick in the butt!
Instead of just thinking up all those wonderful ideas, I’m actually going to start writing them up π
I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot lately as I’ve just launched a new website. Your thoughts make perfect sense so I’ll be unleashing those posts a bit earlier π
Sage advice on what we forget and sometimes take for granted. Thank you for the remember wake up call.
Rich
Great advice.
I write down all my blog ideas in one word document and I try to treat them as a to do list and so far have been successfully crossing them off as I go along on what has been my 3 month blog adventure… which I intend to make a life-long adventure. π
You reminded me however, my blogs that I don’t feel fit with my current direction need to be written NOW so I can pitch them to other sites and stop delaying that.
Also I liked the final comparison to imagination being like a drug… reminded me of how my mother has told me talent without direction is just a waste.
Great post! A lot of people censor their content with the idea that “my readers/veiwers don’t want to read about this”. There is a market for everything…somewhere somebody is looking for your information, your idea! Write it down, take action, and support others with quality information. Someone will find it important and 1 begets 2 and so on.
Thanks for the great post! I always had trouble with getting the ideas that are jumping around in my head into words. I have a tendency to ramble and that was when I was using Adwords alone, now I use Adwords with Glyphius and I get straight to the point, sort of!
Excellent post, I can totally grok “Write them up anyway, even if they never get posted”.
I have a note with a bunch of kewords for a mood I was in a few weeks back, but never got around to writing a coherent post.
It’s still there, waiting for me to come back to it, but the thrill is gonne, I’ve moved on …
Strike while the iron’s hot! π
When I have an idea, but don’t have time to work on it, I open my blog editor and create a new entry. I add the title and a few words. Sometimes I outline it as well.
When it’s time to write something, if I don’t have a fresh idea, I check the unpublished articles. I’ll fiddle with a few, maybe drop in a picture or some other partial content, write afew phrases. After a while one of these nascent posts will reach critical mass, and I’ll finish it. Sometimes I’ll finish two or three, and I’ll have my week’s work ready to go.
I carry a notebook around with me most of the time for just this sort of reason, and not just for writing ideas for future articles/posts, my best business ideas come to me when doing something completely unrelated, like shopping for groceries – if I don’t write it down there and then it’s lost forever. Certainly when it’s the allotted time to write and you sit down with a blank page in front of you, it’s a lot easier when you have twenty ideas to start with already written down, and what you do write ends up being a lot more inspired as a result.
I just don’t get these ideas π
Fantastic post. I stumbled upon it while doing some research on “hoarding ideas” as I was inspired by a DailyOM post this a.m. about hoarding vs sharing. Not only did you post give me some ideas for my post..it also shined a light on how I hold off on being prolific as I wait for inspiration…better to just write today!
ya! agreed with Joel and a bit messed up.
Excellent post! I was having trouble getting to sleep last night because I had not one, but TWO separate blog post ideas brewing in my head. Got to get them down on paperβ¦
Simply put – Interesting and Informative
Hmm — interesting! I’ve been pretty cocky about how good my system is of continually adding to a giant Google Doc of ideas, but this is helping me think of ways to expand that list. I love the wider and deeper suggestion. Lots of thoughtful suggestions here.
This is great! So, I’ve chosen both journaling and a voice app to first get my ideas down. I also do keyword research and see what folks are asking before I write my posts.
I love that you mentioned that we could write about a topic a few times before we decide whether we’re bored of it, or keep going. In order to have a blog be successful, we’ve got to keep creating content, keep writing…
Thanks for this informative post!
This was spot on! Sage piece of advice. I lost fantastic ideas as well because I didn’t write them down when they came to me and then couldn’t recall them afterwards.
Anyway, great great post overall.
Sonia really does always post the best blogs. Always providing us with great details and useful ideas. We appreciate you!
Hi Sonia,
A good writer opens up the imagination and fires up the idea machine. You have done just that.
Today, there is no dearth of content ideas. We only need to open up be abundance-minded.
This type of article will appear for inspiration.
Good Job! I will keep coming back for more.
Thanks
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