Hi friend!

You have a ton of knowledge, experience and expertise to share.

Yet you might still struggle to come up with something to say when you’re writing your newsletter, blog post, social media post etc.

The secret to having endless valuable things to say, effortlessly sharing your thought leadership and enjoying the process all at the same time?

It’s not starting from a blank slate by having a system.

How? Having an easy Content Studio at the heart of your content flywheel.

💡 Today at a glance

• Why a Content Studio is at the heart of your content flywheel that makes it easy to share your thought leadership.

• The 4 benefits of having a system

• Coaching, consulting or educating others is a people business

Before I dive in, a quick word on why we coaches, consultants or education-solopreneurs struggle with sharing our thought leadership online:

• No time

• No ideas

• No system

• No strategy

• No consistency

• No central source of truth

You might relate to at least one of these challenges above.

I’ve personally experienced all of them at some point since I started writing and sharing my knowledge online (initially part time along side a day job, now full time).

A Content Studio solved all 6 of these struggles for me, in one way or another.

Lets talk about flywheels and how having a system and workflow for content creation tackles these challenges while you’re flying solo.

A Breakdown of Why a Content Studio Flywheel Make It Easy to Share

Nathan Barry (founder of ConvertKit) is the expert on internet-business flywheels.

The Content Studio flywheel is an example of how I think about building systems and putting in place workflows to make mission-critical tasks easier.

1. Idea capture

Capture interesting ideas into my Idea Bank (This can be from books, client meetings, articles, daily life conversations with family, friends or strangers etc.)

2. Creation pipeline

Once a week, during my writing and content creation timeblock, I review these ideas and pick out interesting ideas to test on X / Twitter.

If I’m totally convinced by an idea, I turn that into a long form newsletter I share with you (like I am right now).

3. Celebrate the win of hitting publish

Don’t forget to look at what you published and achieved in the last 1-2 weeks!

It’s a dead simple way to help you stay consistent, build momentum and hit publish.

4. Record analytics

Use data to figure out what your audience is interested in. I do this a couple of weeks after posting something, to give the content time to run it’s course.

I pay a lot of attention to comments on X and the email replies I get from newsletter subscribers like you (and I always reply —so hit reply if you haven’t before, I would love to e-meet you!)

5. Analyse the signals

When you analyse the data, you’re see signals and patterns in what your community enjoys through questions they ask or insights they share.

That generates a ton of ideas, which I feed back into my Content Studio (that’s why it’s circular and a flywheel!)

The big bonus of keeping track of all my published content and links in one place?

When I get asked the same question, it takes me under 5 seconds to find the link and share it with them. Leveraging what I previously created while still being helpful!

Each “turn” of my content flywheel, makes sharing existing and new ideas 10x easier and more efficient.

And the truth is, soon your problem isn’t no ideas but having too many ideas!

A good problem to have.

I have 300+ ideas sitting in my Idea Bank in Notion right now… I’m not saying they’re all good ideas. But I know I never start from a blank slate when I’m in my writing block. I get to dive right in and enjoy the process of creating helpful content to share.

My philosophy is to be liberal and loose collecting ideas, but ruthless when sharing them, making sure it’s truly something readers will find helpful.

The 4 Big Benefits of Having a System

#1 Quickly capture new content ideas

Having a digital quick capture system means you'll never forget a content idea that randomly pops into your head while walking, working or just going about your day.

From my experience, the best ideas comes when you least expect it!

#2 A full-proof content pipeline and storage system to stay organised

Having all your ideas in one place is more time efficient and organised. You can pull it up when you’re ready to write, and know everything is right there.

Digital tools like Notion give you the powerful function to tag your content by status (e.g. Idea, Next Up, Writing, Scheduled, Published) and organise by content buckets (e.g. Productivity, leadership, life design).

You can also easily visualise this in different style such as a Kanban board or list.

#3 Write consistently

When you make the process enjoyable and you use a tool you like, writing becomes something you look forward to doing. It becomes a lighter lift, spurring your content flywheel forward.

#4 Make strategic decisions

At a basic level designing a Content Studio system that helps you:

• Keeps track of your data analytics.

• Easily find and re-share content when you get asked similar questions.

• See the different pieces of content you’re publishing across multiple platforms all in once place.

Because of this, you can make more strategic decisions (e.g. where you should focus your time, what do you enjoy writing about, what does your audience engages with the most).

Coaching, Consulting or Educating Others Is a People Business

That means we need to build trust with people. There are heaps of ways to build trust. Testimonials is the gold standard for building trust and authority in your niche.

But business experts like Justin Welsh also talk non-stop about using content to build your online presence and trust (and he’s built a $6.7M+ solopreneur business using content).

Your Content Studio is the system for your to ideate, create, write, publish and track your thought leadership content. It’s a critical pillar for starting or scaling your business. I do this in Notion, but you can use any tool.

Just pick a tool you enjoy using.

(By the way, if you want some help in Notion, I’m offering my strategy roadmap sessions for $99, looking to work with just 3 people on this at the moment)

Having a Content Studio is one example of a system you can design in your business to unlock more productivity, time and mental headspace… Not just so you can do focused work. But so you can work less.

Sharing your thought leadership doesn’t have to be hard.

Content creation becomes easier with each piece of content you publish. When the flywheel starts, it spurs forward momentum and compounds your efforts.

That’s why internet business gurus like Justin Welsh, Kevon Cheung and Jay Clouse all talk about using content to build businesses.

Use a system to make it easy on yourself.

🛣️ One for the Road

I know I harp on a bit about systems…

Specifically, I believe Slow Productivity Systems is what helps us be productive during our working hours and unlock more time so we get to work less not more.

Why? Because there is more to life outside of work, and unless we make time for it, time will fly by before we know it.

So I want to leave you with some photos I took from a recent trip to Yosemite National Park. An absolutely beautiful place!

That’s it! Thanks for reading.

If you’re struggling to figure out Notion, hit reply and I’ll help you out (I respond to all emails!)

See you next week,

Janice CK

📌 Noteworthy

A roundup of noteworthy resources in the space of Slow Productivity, Notion and slowprenuership.

1. Dr. K – The Harvard Psychiatrist helping creators with performance, burnout, and dealing with negative feedback

   A fantastic podcast interview between Jay Clouse and expert Dr. K on the science-proven ways to reduce burnout in the creator space. I loved this one idea they shared, that it’s the freedom from expectation that allows you to grow and thrive. When we start moving the expectation goal post constantly, that’s when we start to burn out and drop out of the creator journey.

2. Email Course Engine by Kevon Cheung

   Finished this very practical and actionable course by Kevon this week, highly recommending it! I’m ideating and drating my free email course at the moment, it’s around how to Working Clean in Notion, the course has been helpful in this process.

3. Design Your Summer, Comfort vs. Adventure, & Friendship Burnout

   Gretchen Rubin always has such whimsical and practical suggestions on her show with sister Elizabeth Craft. This is one to listen to as you get your summer plans going.

(NB: Some are links in this newsletter are affiliate links. I never recommend anything that I don’t personally use or love. If you do click through, it won’t cost you a cent extra. But your support means a lot if you do, so thank you!)