On your mark, get set ……
I bet if you ever ran track, you know exactly what that means and just reading the words probably got your heart pumping. And it either excited you or pinged that existential dread in the pit of your stomach.
If you never ran track, lucky you and here’s a little visual for you.
That’s sort of how creating content feels today. Lots of pressure to create lots of stuff and to do it super fast!
And that can be exciting or downright depressing.
Too much excitement with no organized plan means very little content or less than stellar content.
Downright depression or overwhelm most likely also means not getting much done.
Which is why creating containers and using proven frameworks (structures) gives us a jump start on content creation and gives us staying power.
You build a container when you commit to do doing something.
Like:
- I will create one new blog post a week on my website.
- I will send my newsletter out once a month.
- The commitment makes the container, the thing that tethers you do doing what you set out to do.
But no matter how strong our container (commitment), it’s the structures we put in place that support our follow through.
Here’s an example.
I will post a Twitter thread for (target audience) every Wednesday morning (here’s your container) using this format: take a key but complex idea from one of my blog posts/podcasts/videos and write 6 sequential tweets that break down and make that key idea easily understood and digested (here’s your structure).
The structure creates consistency — for you and your readers — and bonus points, it also fires your brain to see to see things through this lens. Meaning, your brain will start thinking — how can I break this content piece into a Twitter thread following my set structure?
Almost on auto-pilot.
Compare this to saying, I’ll create X whenever I feel like it.
No container, no structure, means nothing’s really gonna happen.
At least that’s how it goes for me, and I doubt I’m an exception
So if you struggle with creating consistent content, perhaps consider building a container and a structure for the specific types of content you want to create.
Photo by Braden Collum on Unsplash