Why Your Content System Keeps Failing (& What You Need Instead)…

For 10 years I was a wannabe creator.

Starting creative projects, only to have them fizzle out time after time.

And because I solve problems by building systems, I convinced myself that if only I had a better content creation system I would eventually succeed.

But no amount of tweaking my system ever helped.

I still had a graveyard of projects that never got off the ground 😩

Photo by jose aljovin on Unsplash

That was until I read the book How To Take Smart Notes & started building a knowledge system. Something changed when I shifted my focus from content to knowledge.

A content system is designed to create content. Which sounds good in theory. But creating content alone over a long period will soon start to feel like you’re on a hamster wheel to nowhere.

A knowledge system on the other hand is designed to create… knowledge. And when you create knowledge & content together it compounds. So every time you publish you feel like you’re building to a beautiful crescendo.

It turns out I didn’t need a better content system as a creator — i needed a knowledge-building system.

The Four Key Ingredients To Build Your Creator Knowledge System:

1. A Way To Capture Ideas

Ideas are your lifeblood. Don’t let them go. The key to capturing ideas it to make it as simple as possible. Have one way to capture new ideas. Not multiple notebooks and apps and emails, etc. Just one way ideas can get in.

Then have one place all those ideas are stored — so you can easily bring up the list or the notes and work through them.

Read more about how I use Readwise as my capture system here.

2. A Space To Think

Most creators only ever write when they need to produce content. But if you want to build deep ideas you need space to think & write — not content. Just about your ideas (& this actually speeds up content creation in the end).

All my ideas end up in what I call my Spark Inbox. This is my happy place every morning where I get to…