How To Get Ideas To Write Everyday
“There’s treasure everywhere!” — Calvin & Hobbes.
When I first still new here, I got advice from Tom Kuegler and pretty much almost all writers to write everyday, produce one article daily. That is the key to gain more readers, followers, and pretty much all the things most writers want. Not to mention, money as well.
I was confused about how to get daily because it's hard, especially when we ran out of ideas to write about. I was afraid of milking it too much that it’ll hinder quality, but Tom said to write what makes you feel something, so I tried out his advice.
It was frustrating at first. Getting ideas wasn’t easy, especially when there isn’t something you feel inspired to talk about. I had to really get creative.
I’ve never written much and now that I am in this business, I knew I had to be serious. So I set a target first doing consistent writing after listening to how Stephen King was able to release so many books:
After a while, I found my own way to be able to gain ideas to write daily.
For those who are struggling to get ideas every single day, I hope this will be helpful for you.
So here are two simple steps I did so that I can get ideas everyday.
- Diversify your topics.
- Change your perspective.
Warren Buffett always said to not put all your eggs into one basket. This not only applies in stocks but in our life as well, we can’t just keep focusing on one thing in our field of specialty. There is always a way to diversify it, just like writing, that is why there are different genres to write about. This helped it to be easier to find topics to write about.
Secondly, there are ideas everywhere, we just need to look at it from a different angle. This really depends on how you see it, but for me, I find that everything has a value in their content so I mainly took things out of context. That’s when the ideas sparked for me and I was able to write everyday.
So here’s how I got ideas I mainly get from:
1) Youtube
On average, 300 hours of videos are uploaded on Youtube every day. This means there are new ideas to watch every single day!
Watch what you like and try to get something from it. For me, finding something to take from the video is the one that is most valuable.
That doesn’t mean that you have to binge self-development videos 24/7 straight, you’ll go insane by the end of the day. Plus, people can watch it already, so don’t restate what is uploaded. Instead, you can add or change what is in the video.
For me, I love to watch Conan O’Brien’s videos that involved his staff. Then one day, I was wondering how come other Tonight’s Shows didn’t do what he did, and how is it that he was able to get along with his staff so well. In fact, the videos he did with his staff are the ones that had more views than the main core of the Tonight Shows.
So I took a closer look at all his videos and tried to analyze it on my own. Then I wrote an article about it and it got curated, you can read it here:
2) Movies
As much fun as it is to watch, there are different perspectives when we watch this. Most people would see this as something to watch and relax, but if we change our perspective, there is actually a lot of things to learn. I don’t really like to write reviews because everyone has their own opinions. So, I found another way to watch movies and find things that can be taken for a two-cent.
Here is an example of what I found and wrote about, I didn’t write a review on it. The last movie I watched before the lockdown was Little Women, a movie based on a book. It’s a story of the life of four ladies in a cottage, trying to live a life even though they were poor.
However, there was one lady of the four siblings who is passionate in writing, Jo March. In the movie, we see her as a passionate and energetic lady who went against society’s demands on women. Something that I somehow can relate to her.
After the movie, the movie inspired me to write about her. Thus, here is the article that I wrote and got curated.
3) Books
A writer must also read. Every writer said so, there is so much value of reading that we can take. Whether it is reading fiction or non-fiction books, as long as you read, you can take in a lot from it. As Tyrion Lannister says,
I have my mind…and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge. That’s why I read so much.
And he is right. His character became one of the smartest people, able to escape death just with words.
Just like us, we need books for our minds. As much as I love movies more than books, I found that books have more to take away than on screen. It is just like how most people complained when the movie Harry Potter was created and fans realized that there are things from the books that are cut out.
I started reading again about few years ago, from fiction to non-fiction and I grew to love it. One day, I was reading about Rich Dad Poor Dad written by Robert Kiyosaki. The book basically tells us how to be rich by first changing our mindsets, and he gave examples from the Wright Brothers.
Here is where I got the idea about the Wright Brothers. What would they advise us if they were alive today? So I researched them and made an article about what they would’ve advised us. A few weeks later, the article was curated.
4) News
Meanwhile, this is the most updated story we could ever get at the moment, news. It could be politics, businesses, economy, there are so many new things. The beauty of journalism is that journalists are demanded to publish something that needs awareness, and for many people, many things need awareness.
I find that politics is a sensitive subject but the most talked about, especially since the presidential election is coming up. And Trump keeps coming up in the news, so I find that he is really creating awareness for himself. That’s when my ideas sparked that led me to write this:
Side note: I wrote that piece for marketing case study only, not asking you to vote for him.
So there you have it
So as you can see here, and like what Calvin said to Hobbes when he was digging for treasures in his backyard,
“There is treasure everywhere.”
It doesn’t have to be something grand like gold and silver. Because as what Captain Jack Sparrow said,
“Not all treasure’s silver and gold, mate.”
It really is about your perspective.
There area lot of ideas everywhere, and especially that seeing that we are all at home, the way to travel is on the internet. I get mine mainly from the ones discussed above, then I add with personal experience stories to make it interesting.
Personal experience will definitely help, but sometimes we are swamped on which one to tell. That’s why I got my resources first from above to filter which personal experience to tell.
So try to take things out of context, find value in everything you read and watch.
Today, I am able to write everyday and, ultimately, increase my followers ever since I became serious on Medium a few months ago.
I hope you learn something here.
