Photo credit to Nik Shuliahin

Note: There's a TL;DR in the conclusion of this post if you don't feel like reading. I don't know why you clicked on this if you don't feel like reading, but more power to you, traveller. 👋

Note 2: There are some beefy GIFs in this post, so if you live in the US, then I'm sorry for the data stealing, fellow steemian.

Ideas - we all get them in different ways. In this post, I'll talk about how I get ideas for steemit posts. Everyone has their own little secret to finding good ideas. I happen to be both blessed and cursed with a mind that won't stop generating new ideas. So I'm here to share my secrets.

Idea generation

How I get most of my ideas.

Like all great ideas, mine mostly come to me randomly. The vast majority of my ideas come to me while I'm taking a shower or walking somewhere. Interestingly enough, the topic doesn't come to me first, but the title of the post. I think of a title and if I have time while the idea is still in my head, I brainstorm the content as well.
Once I've taken my shower or have gotten to my destination, I quickly write it down in my Todoist project and leave it there. Since I aim for 0-3 posts per day, I usually have more ideas than I have time.
Besides random ideas, I write about things I've learned and my thoughts on recent experiences. Examples of this are my posts specifically about AIESEC.

Idea storage 📦

What's in the box? My list of ideas.

Original video credit to How to ADHD

I have a backlog of ideas that seems to naturally be growing exponentially. I keep this list as a Todoist project so that I can have a quick overview of my choices and can quickly distribute posts as daily tasks and get my hit of dopamine when I've written them. I talked about Todoist and why I use it here and I talk about dopamine in my goal setting post.

If I'm not near a computer, I try to remember the idea until I get near a computer to write it down in my Todoist project. (Not paid by Todoist, but if y'all want to hit me up, then feel free.) Many ideas have been lost this way and I hope they've found a better home.

Brainstorming

I rarely do this as a separate process. I usually already do this while walking or doing something boring. I find that this is more effective for me than sitting down, going balls to the wall and really planning out a post before writing it.

Yes, you read that right. I almost never plan out my posts before writing them.

However, if I had to do this process separately my only guidance would be the following:

Write about what excites you and what you're passionate about. It shows, trust me.

Writing

Illustrative GIF of me writing a post.

I limit most of my writing time for posts to a maximum of 1 hour for nearly every post. I do this to avoid spending too much time on perfecting my post and it forces me to get my thoughts out.

I often only have a slight clue of the content that I will write about, but I have 1 hour and I'll be damned if I don't finish the post by the end of that hour. This is a trick I use for a lot of work I do because it takes advantage of a psychological effect called the panic monster. I talked about this and other tricks in my productivity recapturing post.

I love writing, so this as much a restriction than it is a push to get a post finished.

Conclusion

Let's answer the questions in a more short way:

1. How do you get new ideas? 15-minute showers and I walk almost everywhere.
2. Content? 🤷 Depends on the day I guess.
3. Actually writing? I give myself 1 hour to do it. Whatever happens, happens. So far it's been pretty good.

What did we learn? Showering and walking everywhere are good for quite a few things.

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Where do you get ideas from? How long do you spend on writing? Tell me more, it's fascinating.

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