George Kao explains why capturing ideas consistently in one place matters for creators. He walks through his own evolution from notepads to smartphones, recommends Notes or Google Keep, and suggests capturing ideas right after client calls or consuming content.
One of the keys to creating content consistently, whether you want to write more or to do more videos or to share more photos or whatever. It may be a practice that I see a lot of people not doing, is to have a place that's easy for you to capture your ideas, so that when it comes time to create content, you can just take out those list of ideas and pick one that you want to do that you're most energized by. This is a practice that has become so normal for me that I often forget to teach it because it's become just second nature. And so what I did was, I mean, really, I started doing this back in the early 90s, even late 80s. I used to have a note, a tiny notepad, and a small pencil that I used to carry around with me everywhere. And whenever I had an idea that I want to remember, I don't want to forget, I. I pull out the notepad, just this tiny one, so easy to fit in my pocket and quickly jot a few notes. And then in the late 90s, the PalmPilot came along and I started using the Palm Pilot a lot to write my ideas. And of course now with the iPhone and Android smartphones, it's so much easier to have to be able to quickly capture your ideas. So I really, really encourage you, if you don't have a practice of quickly and easily capturing your content ideas, please start today. Get. I mean, you probably have a smartphone, iPhone, and Android on the iPhone. Every iPhone comes with an app called Notes. Notes. N O T E S. Right. I don't know what the app on the Android is. For those who know, please comment below. But Android, you can download the app called Google Keep. So Google has a way for you to take notes for free, easily called Google Keep K E E P. And so please practice that today when you have an idea that you think, oh, I might want to write about this, or I might want to do a video take, take a pause, take out your smartphone and write it down right then and there. And if you do this once, twice, three times, 10 times, 20 times, it will become natural for you. And here's what's magical. You will start getting more ideas because your brain will be primed to realize that if your brain says, oh, if I give you ideas now, you could say it's your brain or it's your muse or your intuition, but from whatever source you believe it comes from, if you allow that source to flow through finally down to paper or to your smartphone, that source, that channel will be more Open and will be wider and more ideas will flow through. I have more ideas today for making videos like this than I had a year ago, than five years ago. Okay. Because I allowed that source to be opened by. Keep writing it down, keep letting it go somewhere rather than blocked by your forgetfulness. Oh, I forgot to do this, so I might as well not, not even bother coming up with ideas. It's basically what your subconscious or your spirit is saying. Okay, so please start practicing that today. You got to practice it once, twice, three times, five times, ten times before it starts to become habitual that you naturally immediately think, oh, idea that I might want to create content with. Pause, write it down. Okay? Write it down somewhere that you can easily get again. Okay, A couple of times that you might want to practice. This is after a client appointment. Pause. Don't schedule another one right away. Give at least 15 to 30 minutes between your client appointments. Pause and say, huh? From this client appointment, what could I write something about that was some kind of aha moment that the client had some kind of exercise I walked the client through that was helpful for them, some kind of story that I told or that from the client's life that might be useful as a teaching tool for my audience. So after client appointments, another one is after you watch someone else's video or read someone else's article that's in your industry, you probably have some ideas like, oh, I could talk about this as well, but in my own way. Or oh, this author didn't mention this. Well, maybe I should talk about that. Okay, so after this is, I get ideas all the time. After watching other sort of business and marketing videos, I go, huh, I want to talk about it in my own way. I want to talk about this way. So I hope this is helpful for some times for you to practice taking notes so that you have writing prompts essentially, or video topic ideas. Okay? So until the next video, I'm George Kao and I wish you a habit of allowing your ideas, your content ideas to have a place to be so it's easier for you to create content, be well.
