Between my two personal projects, I create a lot of content.
offlinemark:
- Blog – Writing
- Twitter – Shorter writing, writing meant to be seen more widely
- Youtube – Educational content, screencasts
- Podcast – Stories & lessons from my life, more personal
comfort (my music production project):
- Music
- Youtube – Educational content, screencasts on music production
- Podcast
I also have a travel blog that I don’t share publicly.
Some of these channels are more active than others, but I have three principles that help me do it all.
1 – Harvest, don’t generate
I try to harvest content from what I experience & learn in my life, rather than sit down, brainstorm, and generate content from nothing.
2 – Respect inspiration
I’m significantly more productive when I’m inspired, so I try to treat moments of inspiration with great respect and get to work when they come. Sometimes this means being awake at 5:18am writing (as I am now).
Rick Rubin talks about this exact concept in “The Creative Act”.
I try to avoid queueing things at all costs; if possible I just sit down and do it now.
3 – Have buckets for everything
Different kinds of ideas naturally have a medium in which they are best expressed. Insights or essays are best expressed in writing. Educational walkthroughs are best done via screencast. Stories are best told via audio.
I try to have “buckets” (media channels) ready to receive ideas in their best form the moment they strike. This helps you harvest as much of your creative potential as possible.
For a long time, I left content on the table by not having a podcast for offlinemark. I regularly had stories I thought of and wanted to share, but simply had no great place for them, so they weren’t shared. Now that I have the podcast, I notice that I fairly regularly have a thought that is suitable for that medium, and can capture it.
Bonus: Default to public, and iterate
Don’t get tied up polishing content before you publish it. Default to publishing whatever you have, and remember: You can always polish, expand, or re-release content later. Defaulting to in public maximizes the potential for it to be discovered.