📝 Document, Don't Create

Create new content every week, they said! Create content that’s interesting and novel, they said! Create content that helps people solve problems, they said! In this case, “they” is actually sometimes me (guilty as charged). And yet: You need to create less content.

That’s right. You can stop feeling guilty that you aren’t publishing three blog posts, a podcast episode, and a vlog every week. You need to take a deep breath and stop creating content (but simultaneously publish more).

Your Creative Well Needs a Break

Creating anything from scratch is brutal, exhausting work that requires a very specific creative energy. You can develop your creative muscles and train yourself to focus and build stamina, but only to a point.

Whenever you draw from your creative well, you need rest and rejuvenation to refill that well before you draw again. That means that you should use your creative energy sparingly, saving your true create-from-scratch energy for decisions, products, or marketing strategy to grow your online business. For day-to-day content? There’s a much simpler way.

Document, Don’t Create

Gary Vaynerchuk pioneered the concept “Document, don’t create” in response to the feedback from his audience that creating is hard. Gary publishes social media posts, blog posts, podcast episodes, and vlogs nearly every single day. He has a team to help with production, but that’s still an overwhelming amount of content if you’re committed to creating—so he almost never “creates” content at all.

You need to think differently if you’re committed to publishing regular content but keeping your full creative energy in reserve. Look around you. What are you already doing, seeing, or thinking that your target audience would like to know?

Think of your audience while you go about your day, and stop to make a note when you find something interesting to report. Your stories flow freely when they come from the life you live in. You do need to publish regular content—but document, don’t create.