A client recently told me her biggest barrier to getting more blogs written was coming up with ideas. What?!?
Are you living?
I have so many ideas for writing, my problem is choosing only one.
I know this can be a barrier so let’s go over five great sources of ideas for your next blog, article, podcast, or YouTube video (make sure you add more in the comments):
I was leaving a convention today to catch a cab to the airport when…
1. Life. Let’s start with the biggest baddest source of all – everyday life. Pay attention to little things and you have the start of big topic. I was leaving a convention today to catch a cab to the airport when out of the blue a woman asked if I was going to the airport. Luckily we were both going to the same airport (we were in Washington, DC which has three). We shared a cab. Turns out she lives close to where my brother lives in Playa del Rey, California and she is a retired media personality who coaches speakers. Hot diggity there’s at least three blogs right there.
2. Feedly. Since Google retired their RSS blog reader I’ve been hooked on feedly.com. Super easy, fast and I get all my favourite blogs pulled into on spot. As a rule, I always comment on blogs I read (that’s good karma, hint, hint) and any ideas for my own writing go into my blog notebook in Evernote (here’s how I use Evernote).
3. Google Analytics. Pay attention to your top-read blog posts and write more on those topics. It only makes sense that a magazine will publish more articles on topics that were best sellers – same for you. To do this, log into Google Analytics, click on Behaviour > Overview to open the report, then click on “email” at top of page. Set up a monthly email of the report to you.
4. Questions. When you’re asked a question it can be the start of a great blog or article. My blog post about false idols was inspired by an innocent question, asking who my mentors were. I recorded the idea in Evernote and then later developed it into a blog. What questions have you been asked in the last week?
There are always lessons in life worth exploring
5. Lessons. There are always lessons in life worth exploring. What can you learn from when you procrastinate, or why you bought that donut, or what your child said to you last night? Why did that client say ‘Yes’ to a higher price when the one yesterday didn’t? Lessons learned are always worth sharing.
It’s not always easy to generate new content but it’s a lot easier if you know where to look.
Great blog as usual Hugh. When I get stuck trying to write I change up my environment. My favourite place I’m inspired to write is on my sailboat.
Thanks Mary. If only we could all have a sailboat for our private muses. I’m settling for my backyard.
Hugh,
I’m also a big user of Feedly. All the key sites that I follow I know have organized in Feedly by key subject or theme.
Another nice thing is that it has greatly reduced the number of Emails that get, since I no longer “subscribe” to Email updates from dozens of different sites. Instead of these sites “pushing” their updates to me, I just go into Feedly as part of my weekly workflow and browse all new articles that have posted to these sites. I regularly add new sites, as well as delete sites if I find I don’t get enough value from them.
Michael
I was literally trolling twitter looking for blog inspo when I saw this link to this blog. Thanks, Hugh. Good article
Thanks Melody – I’m so happy that your trolling was successful!