How to Generate Infinite Content Ideas

- To go from consumer -> creator
- Turn Twitter from a time-waster into an idea generation factor
- Mine inspiration from your daily life

Notes from live session of @aliabdaal's PT Youtube Academy

Most difficulties with starting to produce content online are actually perfectionism by a different name.

You have taste. You KNOW what's good - but you know you're not there yet. So you give in.

Ira Glass has a great quote on how to overcome this.

One way to hack through your perfectionism: utilize your hard-won experiences.

The more time you needed to "prepare" your content, the better it's going to be, and more easily it will flow when it comes to create.

If you video comes from 10+ yr of experience, it will be great.

Once you get over someone -somewhere- being further along than you are in your topic, you'll stop self-censoring so much. https://twitter.com/MarcKoenig_/status/1329117259659403275

Ali mentions that his best videos magically then to come from times he's making 3 videos a week (vs. 1 or 2).

The more iterations, the more you're exposing yourself to serendipitous successes.

@naval below

See also:

The Parable of the Pottery Class

https://aliabdaal.com/pottery/ 

Once you've of mined your own hard-won experiences and started iterating generating content regularly, you'll need a method to systematically capture ideas.

You never want to be facing the blank page wondering: what do I write or film today?

==Technique #1: Eureka Moments==

Once you commit to a practice of creating content, you'll start to see new ideas for everywhere. Your brain is primed.

Once you buy a car, you start seeing that model everywhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect

The key is to capture ideas when right they happen.

"Inspiration is perishable." - Naval Ravikant @naval

"Your brain is for having idea, not for holding them." - David Allen @gtdguy

Some potential apps to capture ideas as they occur:

- Roam Research (my jam - if you have questions, ask!) @RoamResearch
- SimpleNote @simplenoteapp
- Drafts @draftsapp
- Things3 @culturedcode

==Technique #2: Birdsong Technique==

Turning your mindset from being a consumer to a creator happens gradually, but one way to pour rocket fuel on the process:

Harness the passive consumption from your daily life.

If you curate your content diet so you can naturally generate content ideas from it, content creation happens frictionlessly.

Ali's recommendation: use your Twitter as inspiration to "pull" content ideas from as you browse.

If you don't consume content on what you're creating, you might not have creator-market fit.

This is true for me re: esports. I'm an expert (founding employee at an esports company that sold for millions), but I'm not drawn to reading esports regularly. https://twitter.com/MarcKoenig_/status/1329117221130543106

Ali's recommendation: Use Twitter to discover content over Google.

"The best content isn't on a Google search, because the Google search results are from SEO marketers."

==Technique #3: Coal Mining==

Gradually accumulate deep resources of content and mine interesting topics and ideas from them.

Some of Ali's favorite coal mines:

- Ness Labs @anthilemoon
- Farnam Street @ShaneAParrish
- Eric Barker @bakadesuyo
- http://Trends.co 
- Masterclass

Just credit people when you're inspired by them - send them the traffic and they'll never complain.

Enjoy these notes? Read the rest as I add them here! https://twitter.com/MarcKoenig_/status/1328403283493478400