Christopher Murphy · 7 October, 2020
Summary: You can speed up your content discovery and creation process by using strategies to save time. In this short – and in development – article, I'll explain my approach for The School of Design.
When I read a book, listen to a podcast or watch a TED talk or YouTube video, I focus on trying to capture the value of the writer or speaker in short, sharp notes.
I then use these notes as the backbone to create content for my Twitter account.
If the tweets help others, that's a win. Even if the tweets get zero engagement, writing them helps me to internalise what a writer or a speaker is communicating and helps me to remember it. It also provides a useful set of notes to refer to later, that’s another win.
This approach is another way for me to move value out of my brain – and The School of Design's Slack community – and hopefully help a wider audience via The Library.
As long as you’re priming your brain – nourishing it through reading, listening to podcasts, watching videos… – you’ll have content.
The secret is to establish principles to turn the inputs into outputs.
One of the fastest and most efficient ways to supercharge your content creation is to repurpose your content, moving it from A → B.
For example: I reply to a thread in The School of Design’s Slack community and I move it from Slack → Twitter, as in the screenshot below. This can then be moved again, from Twitter → Instagram, perhaps as a carousel.
This content might then be repurposed again, perhaps expanded upon into an article. That article might be used for The School of Design’s blog or The Library.
The screenshot accompanying the tweet above was taken and edited from a Slack post in The School of Design community. I did this whilst travelling on a bus, otherwise I would have tidied the screenshot!