Stop Creating Obvious Content

Waddup Part-Time Creators, today we’re talking about the cost of the craft.

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ChatGPT will flood the world with more obvious content.

Likely newsfeeds will be inundated with the ‘10 Productivity Tips’, mentioning morning routines and green smoothies. There is some good news though if you can slide past the obvious stuff, you’ll be ahead of the pack.

Here’s how you do that.

The obvious content-test

Obvious content is stuff that you can think of in 5 minutes flat.

Let’s take an example.

‘The 5 am Morning Routine That x10 My Productivity’ is an article well all know far too well. So well, you could probably list off the stuff it mentions:

• Morning journaling

• Get outside for 45 minutes

• Write a clear to-do list for the day

• Morning reading (10 pages of non-fiction)

And the reasons why a morning routine works? Well, again, the more obvious stuff:

• Sunlight is good for the brain in the morning

• The morning is quiet and you are uninterrupted

• You have space to think in the morning when the day hasn’t started

You see it’s obvious. The ‘Obvious Content Test’ is simple, if you can think it in 5 minutes, it needs further thought or binning.

Most people slap it on a page and move on. Your content needs to be better than that.

How to reverse engineer obvious content

Now some stuff you come up with in the first 5 minutes of thinking is worth keeping, it just needs further thought. Here’s how you develop that thinking:

Take your obvious content: Write a clear to-do list

And then do one simple thing, ask why? Why is a clear to-do list a game-changer to your productivity?

Well because it keeps you focused (it’s next to you all day), it should be tackling the biggest tasks for the day (80/20 rule), and it keeps you accountable.

And then ask again ‘why is that important?’

Human beings have something called a present bias where they find it difficult to act in the interest of their future self, a to-do list makes the present front of mind. Also if you’re anything like me, having something to tick off gives you a dopamine hit. There’s nothing like ticking off something that’s been on your list.

Then ask how?

The next thing you wanna do is ask how questions. So let’s take a to-do list. Okay so you’ve got a to-do list but how do you make it an effective list?

• Where do you store it?

• Do you have rules around it?

• What happens to the stuff you miss?

• Are you rewarded when you hit your targets?

You could, if you wanted, write an entire book on to-do lists. I’m not sure many people would read it (or maybe they would) but there are so many elements to it.

Perfecting the to-do list might actually be the single biggest reason you nail your productivity. I don’t know. Anyways, the point is, the way you differentiate in this new world is with depth.

Then the best bit of all

Go beyond the obvious and ask better questions. That bit is easy.

The hard bit is making people care. Making people believe that they should read your work and pay attention to what you’ve got to say. You do that in two ways:

1. Tell a story

2. Sprinkle in your personality

What’s worse than obvious content? Obvious content without any personality. Eurgh. The best tips for telling stories and adding personality:

• Telling stories: context, conflict, ambition, action, resolution.

• Personality: use the words you would normally, write like you speak, and pretend it’s your best pal you’re writing this thing to.

Bringing it together

The world has enough productivity blogs, morning routine articles, day in life breakdowns. What will make you stand out is if you create content that goes beyond the obvious.

That digs deep.

Go beyond the first thought. Ask ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions to get you to the next level of thinking. Trust me, in a world where AI is changing everything, it’ll help you stay ahead.

That’s all for today! Let me know what you thought by replying back to this email. See you soon!

- Eve.

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