By Leo Babauta
I’m often asked how, after blogging for about 4 years now, I can still keep coming up with useful ideas for posts.
The short answer is there are two places I get posts: my own life, and from the inspiration of the lives of others. Very often, the two are interrelated.
I get inspired by reading about great things others are doing or have done. I decide to try them out myself, and conduct a little experiment in my life. I reflect on the experiment and write about it. Sometimes that inspires others to try these things themselves.
That’s the basic process, and it works beautifully. It also never fails, and will never end, as long as I continue to get inspired, try new things, and learn.
Why Your Life is the Perfect Source
Consider: I’ve written about so many things, and they’re all from the same basic source of ideas — my life, inspired by others. Just a few of the topics I’ve experimented with, and written about:
- Getting started running
- Doing a marathon
- Doing a triathlon
- Getting out of debt
- Waking earlier
- Getting more productive
- Trying GTD (Getting Things Done)
- Simplifying my possessions
- Simplifying my work life
- Reading to my kids
- Walking
- Running barefoot
- Becoming more frugal
- Finding happiness
- Having a happy marriage
- Letting go of goals
And so on. These were all experiments I tried in my life, and then wrote about. And people seemed to love the posts.
My life — and yours as well — is always going through change. I’m always learning something new. Every day is an opportunity to learn something, and if we pay attention, we can learn and share what we’ve learned.
There’s no end to that. It doesn’t stop until we die, or unless we stop paying attention. There is no end to post ideas in our lives, which is why it’s the perfect well — we can dip into it endlessly.
The Model: Do Interesting Things
While you can get great ideas from everyday life — what you do is likely what a lot of people do — it’s more fun to do interesting things and report the results to your readers.
I look for inspiration in what others are doing — in books I read, articles, blog posts, people I talk with, everywhere — then I decide to give something a try. It might be a new exercise or eating regime, a new way of working, a new schedule for my life, a new limit that forces me to figure out what’s important.
I give it a try, and see what happens. This might be for as short as a few days or a week, or as long as a month or two. Or longer if necessary. As I’m doing it, I reflect on what’s going on. I’m mindful, and thoughtful, and I think about what I can share with people. It’s a fascinating process.
It starts with doing interesting things. Look for something new to do. Get inspired by others. See what might be changed in your life for the better. Do it with your spouse, your friends, as a group. Go online and join a forum and challenge yourself. Tweet about it and then blog about it.
Do interesting things. If you’re not interested in the things you’re doing, no one else will be either.
Inspiration Interviews
Another great idea for posts is the interview. Email questions to people and post the responses on your blog — not very difficult, once you get the interviewee to agree.
But what kind of interviews should you do? Ones about people who inspire you, who are doing inspiring things. The interview, in turn, should inspire your readers.
Ask them questions about the inspiring things they’re doing, and about how they’re doing them, and why, and where they got the ideas, and what they’ve learned. That’s fascinating stuff.
If you can’t get interviews, then at least blog about these people. You don’t need someone’s permission to highlight what they’re doing publicly, and to point out how inspirational they are and how we can all learn things from them.
Create Challenges for Readers
Just as you might create challenges for yourself, you can challenge your readers to do interesting things as well. Do it with them! It’s motivating to do things as a group.
Mary recently challenged her readers to an 8-week fitness challenge. It was inspiring, and I joined. She then created a forum where we could all log in, post our goals, post daily reports of our exercise, ask and answer questions. It’s been incredible — it really motivates you when you know you’re going to have to report back to the group.
Your challenge can be about anything. If you notice that your readers have a certain problem in common, find a challenge that will help them overcome that problem. If you’ve had the problem, chances are many others have too.
Challenges can be great ways to create new content, and you can share what you’re learning from the challenges in future posts.
How to Sustain Great Content
There’s no doubt that great content is hard to sustain over the long haul. It’s hard to keep coming up with great ideas. But as many bloggers have shown, it’s possible.
Keep looking for inspiration, everywhere you go, all around you. Read, and reflect on what others are doing and what you might incorporate into your own life, even if it’s in a different field.
Try new things. Do little experiments.
Reflect on what you’ve been doing, regularly. Think about what you’ve learned and what you can share with others.
Challenge your readers. Inspire them with stories and interviews with others who are doing great things.
Doing these things creates a timeless flow of ideas and inspiration that you can’t fail to draw from, for post ideas that never end.