Day 25. Who knew I could make it this far? It is the 25th of January today and this is my 25th straight day of posting an article. My "effort" goals for the year include getting the @HiveBuzz badge for posting every day in a month, and also acquiring 13 of the "Weekly Author" badges. I started the year with one so I need to end with at least 14. Considering, as I said, that I've only managed to do the weekly once in the five years I've been here, these seem like pretty good goals. So far, so good.
But I'm starting to run out of material. lol I've been winging it so far and have done okay, but I've also discovered I need some structure or I'm destined to fail. To that end, I've come up with a couple solid ideas that at least give me some relief on thinking too hard about content.
For all you married folks out there, is there anything worse than the question between you and your spouse of, "What are we going to eat tonight?" lol It drives my wife crazy and then when she puts it back on me I can safely say I don't like it either. I mean, it shouldn't be that hard, right? There's fast food, kits that we buy every week, frozen pizza, mac and cheese, take-out, the options are endless. So why is it always such a stressor to figure it out?
The same is true with writing. I mean, literally, the options are endless. So why can it be so hard to figure out what to write about? Once I get started, I usually have no problem fleshing out an idea, it's just finding the idea that's the hard part.
So one thing I've done is given myself a couple of weekly topics I write about on certain days. Topics I enjoy but that don't necessarily add to the collective knowledge of LeoFinance or Hive.
The first is "Splinterlands Saturday". Every Saturday I just write a post about what's going on in Splinterlands and what I'm doing in the game. There's enough going on every week that the content can be new and different while at the same time, I don't have to spend hours wracking my brain trying to come up with things to say.
The second is "Sportstalk Sunday". For many of us, myself included, sports is a passion both to watch and play. This platform doesn't get nearly enough sports-related content, in my opinion, so I go to the SportsTalkSocial front-end and write a post from there. I'm not getting any Leo for it because unless I talk about the financial side of sports, it doesn't have anything to do with crypto or finance, but it's fun, there's a ton to write about, and again, I don't have to think too hard about coming up with a topic.
There are also a couple other benefits that come from doing things like this. First, it gives you lots of practice writing. Even though I'm not necessarily giving out financial tips or ideas for posting, I'm still using my creative juices to write an article.
Second, it expands your audience. Believe it or not, there is a large population of people here on Hive who never use LeoFinance. Like, never. Those of us here everyday probably don't see that because most of us never use anything else. We see it's potential and usefulness and think everybody should be here. But it doesn't work that way.
There are many, many people who only do #Actifit, or post pictures, or talk #CineTV, or play games, or chat about food, etc, etc. Posting occasional articles in other areas can not only reach people who would normally not see you, but it can also potentially bring them into Leo. Maybe they like what you have to say and follow you and the next thing you know, they're threading away.
So, I'm now 25 days in. Only six more to go for that monthly badge. I need to figure out another topic or two I can do on certain days. Like I said, I have no problem writing the articles for the weekend. Good or bad, at least I always know what I'll be writing about. For me, the hard part is coming up with the topic, which is why I try to read and comment as much as I can every day as that usually gives me ideas of my own to write about.
Anyone else have some good tips on where they get ideas for posts? I can use all the help I can get. :-)
Thanks for reading.
Hive is the Way.