On content creation

August 10, 2017

If you are a content creator, whether a hobby writer, a youtuber, or a musician, you constantly lack time to develop the ideas you have in mind. This is largely due to the unnatural content creation process that most of us have adapted. This process being the classic waterfall model which looks something like this:

Waterfall model

If you are creative human, which you obviously are, elaborating on the idea and planning makes the most fun for you. By the time you come to the execution part of the plan you already savored all the excitement of the original idea and you lack the motivation to execute since it is after all the most dull part of the process.

In the following I will attempt to describe a more efficient working method. Instead of making deliberate plans on creating content from specific idea that you eventually never do due to the time limitations, you should create content on the fly.

For example, if you are a youtuber, constantly shoot videos every day. While you are doing something, learning, working, traveling, whatever it might be. Try to generate as much material as possible. Even if you end up using only a fraction of that, the material you shot will inspire you to put something together and you will have tons of materials for the b-roll.

For a writer it is even easier. You write down ideas on your phone (I recommend Google Keep) as they come. Then whenever you have free 10 minutes you can sit down and elaborate on this which should serve as a skeleton for an article or a chapter later.

For a musician this means quickly recording an idea when it comes instead of just writing it down as a score or a tab.

Iterrative model

If you start working in this manner whenever you get in the mood to work, you will already have a tons of material ready on your computer. When the creative juices start flowing you have everything at your fingertips to start creating something great. The crucial part here is that if you are missing some material, you will not get discouraged and lazy to make it since it is only a small piece after all. Another important point is that this is an iterative process, there is no defined end to a project and thus no stress of a deadline is slowing you down. You always have a version which you can share for feedback and fun, and whenever you feel like it you can spend more time on polishing it before the official publication.

In contrast if you were working in the waterfall model, when you sit down to work, you have no material and you are easily discouraged by the monolithic task of creating everything for the project then and there.

Key to the success of this method is to realize that good enough is better then perfect due to the obvious fact that perfect never comes to existence. And even if it does, and you are content that you invested your 100% in that piece, later you eventually notice that the quality is not noticeably greater then if you made a good enough version of the same thing. Not to mention all the time wasted and frustration. Remember that as creators, we are all in the process of developing our talents and honing our technical skills. Trying to make something perfect with the limitations of our current skills is just not very sensible. Instead, strive to get incrementally better with each work you produce.

I wish you happy and efficient creating.