Flip Your Approach To Content Creation With These 3 Steps

You’re foolish if you don’t.

Have you ever stared down the cold, steely barrel of writer’s block, struggling to find ideas for your content, or facing a creative mental block?

If so, keep reading.

I’ve come across three easy steps that can help you break free from these creative ruts.

Step 1: Notice

The first step is to flat-out notice. You’ll be surprised at how many people can’t or won’t do this.

It’s all about training yourself to see content everywhere. This approach removes the pressure to create because you become more of a curator, not just a creator.

One of my favorite writers is/was Rob Walker. (I really liked his column about consumerism back in the day.)

Anyway, he wrote a book called “The Art of Noticing” and its main point is to give you small tasks each day, like scavenger hunts, to help you notice more things around you in the world.

Once you do a few of them, you’ll see how quite profound they are.

And then the ideas will start pouring out of you, just because you’re better at noticing.

Step 2: Curate

But it’s also not only about the things around you, but also the things you read, hear, and listen to.

You can riff off of the ideas of others, and add a different voice to it.

I consider this to be curation, but not in the traditional sense of “here’s what I’m reading…” (though I do that too sometimes).

Why is curation an excellent way to approach content creation?

It’s because you take content you’ve seen, repackage it in your unique voice, and share it with your audience.

As Tom Critchlow puts it, this isn’t the “ultimate guide” but more like “some notes on…”.

Try it.

Step 3: Develop Your Point of View

The next step is a bit more challenging but essential for rising above the generic content flooding the digital world.

You need a crystal-clear point of view to share with the digital realm.

Finding your point of view can be a journey that takes time.

I’ve been on Medium for several years, stopping and starting and sputtering, and I still feel like my perspective is foreign and unsure sometimes.

I’ve been writing more about note-taking, but also offering critiques of culture, especially on my Substack.

I’m going with it for now, but we’ll see what happens.

If you haven’t found your point of view yet, don’t panic.

Very few people stumble upon it on day one. It takes time, and it happens when the moment is right. It is about being consistent and iterating.

Once you combine a clear point of view with a noticing and content curation approach, rather than feeling the pressure to be entirely original each and every time, you’ll unleash new creative forces like a raging tornado.

The deeper you dive into this, you’ll start to see evidence of your point of view all around you.

Your role as a content creator is to collect and curate these pieces of evidence and use them to spread the word of your point of view.

It doesn’t happen all at once.

However, after it clicks, creating content consistently becomes much simpler.

Turn the chaos in your head into articles people want to read. Here’s your discount code to do it.