Below, I’m going to describe my process for outlining 12 weeks’ worth of articles an afternoon. Based on my usual publishing frequency of two articles a week, that’s roughly 24 articles.
To be clear, I’m talking about outlining rather than creating finished material.
To me, this distinction is important because unless I’ve got an outline, I find it difficult to create final material.
As much I’d like there to be a shortcut to creating content, I’ve yet to find a quick fix that ramps up output while reducing the time spent creating it.
For me, the process needs two non-negotiable things:
a chunk of protected time. No cell phone, email, social media, or interruptions.
a rough outline for a title. It may not be the final title for the article in question, but every writer has to start somewhere.
For me, half the battle in creating articles lies in setting aside time to get things done while the other half revolves around knowing what I’ll create.
So recently, I turned off my phone and logged out of email, and I sat down with a sheet of paper and made a list of the dates on which my articles would appear through until the end of the year.
Then, I wrote a list of when, where, how, why, what, stop, start, who, and yet as trigger words, and I began sketching out a list of article titles based around my fears, the things that have held me back, and around the areas that have kept me stuck in some way.
The best way to create content is by being open to new ways of generating it.
It dawned on me that in order to become productive, it’s essential to get creative.
I used the titles of books, films, and plays to trigger ideas. I thought of questions, doubts, and fears that have held me back, tripped me up, and made me question my thinking and, at times, my sanity. And I thought about people, places, and situations that have inspired me and made me think about something differently.
Within 45 minutes, I’d pulled together a list of 30 article titles, each one of which has enough about it to trigger a series of points I can flesh out into a full-blown article.
This, to me, is half the battle. And who knows, it may be half the battle for you too.
Is this an ideal or even a perfect way to create content? Probably not. But it works for me—AND, more importantly, it’s a technique I know I can recreate in a few weeks time when I begin planning out content for the next few months.
Try it yourself and see if it works for you. Or, why not tweak the process to make it your own. Let me know in the comments section how you go on.
As always, thanks for reading.
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P.S. Next time on Shaking the Tree … Why you need a ‘yet’ mindset.
You are so kind to comment: thank you
I'm always open to new ideas about... generating new ideas. Thanks for sharing!