Are you filming this
No paper was wasted during the filming of this video
So I read a lot. How do I create so much content?
Even though I have so little time the answer might surprise you
Hey, what's up? I'm Derek Halpern, and you're watching my new daily vlog
I plan on blowing this thing up this year, and you're coming along for the ride so get your game face on it
And I got good news today, my man mark is back
So I could do all sorts of cool stuff with the camera like zoom like
Subscribe and share would mean the world to me. I have a lot going on today, but I have a lot of content
I need to create because I'm doing this daily vlog and everything so I want to take you behind the scenes of how I
Managed to pull it off so when I start writing the first thing I do is. I pull out my favorite notebook
It's always a Japanese notebook because they have the highest quality paper
It's like a pillowcase it's amazing. I don't know why I like it
I just like how smooth it is when I write across the paper, but I always start in my notebook
Then I use a Japanese pen this pen is like 12 bucks. It's pretty inexpensive actually
I guess maybe that's expensive for that. Oh, whatever I used this pen. I like the weight and I always use
0.5. Millimeter ink because I like thin writing. It's it's always a gel pen and it's kind of not
Smudge when I'm write ups I hate smudges, but that's how I start my writing
It's always on paper first so a lot of people when they want to write something they think
They need to create ideas out of thin air
But I don't believe you should do that writing starts by looking for writing prompts
And I've had a few of them take a look at this
So you're seeing right here is a vault box
filled with index cards
I actually got this idea from my friend Ryan Holliday who?
Reads a lot of books like I do and when you read a lot of books you want to take notes on the books
You're reading, but how do you take the notes well I often write the notes right in the book itself?
And then I transfer those notes in the book itself to index cards. Can you show you an example?
This is an interview between neil strauss and Tim Ferriss, and it was actually a creative live interview
And here's what Neil Strauss said the key of writing I assume no one cares about what I'm writing about no one cares about me
No one cares about what?
I have to say no one cares about the things I care about if you just go from the premise that nobody cares
How can I make them care?
That's the first paragraph
So this is like a note that I took
And I was actually reading through these notes as I was trying to think about these videos here
But as you can see I have a this this vault box filled with index cards with notes just like that in that
So when I first start writing. I'm not trying to come up with
Unique ideas or anything like that
I'm just going through the notes that I've taken over time and I take notes about everything that was like about writing
I've got other notes like here's something about focus
This is from Michael Lewis on how he writes actually I used to get the Total Immersion
Feeling by writing at midnight the day is not structured to write, and so I unplug the phones
I pull down the blinds
I put my headset on and I play the same soundtrack on 20 songs over and over and over again
It's kind of kind of funny. Actually I listen to the same song. I repeat a lot, too
My favorite song is a clarity by Z, but I write all these things down so I start with an idea
I'll kind of read through all these different index cards well
They oh that could be a piece of content that I'm gonna write say or if the goal really is that when I want to
Start writing. I don't try to invent
New ideas, I just try to look for ideas that I already thought were interesting now
This is often what I do when I'm trying to
cite other
People there's another thing that I do that requires me to get my phone so hold on a second so in addition to using things
Like index cards. I often write down personal stories of my life
This doesn't mean I'm arrogant and I think I the most interesting life, but I often just write down things as they happen
We use an example this says a PS for personal story remind me of your name
And what if it goes like this I bump into an entrepreneur I know him for a few years. They say hey Derek
It's so great to see you and we chitchat about five minutes into the conversation
They say remind me of your name what it's like. You just said my name for five seconds ago
When it happened as soon as we ended the conversation I wrote that right down in my phone
And I'm always writing stuff like this down all the time. Here's another example of something I wrote down
This is actually a good one so one of my friends said something crazy happened
I wish I were as witty as you are in these situations. That's it and all that is psy
I'm so witty now the reason why I write this stuff down is because sometimes you're struggling to find a
personal story or a personal anecdote to really make your content yours and
For me I found the more I write this stuff down as it happens the more stories
I have to share so if I'm trying to create a piece of content. I've got notes here. I've got notes there
I've got notes pretty much everywhere
I'm not really creating content out of thin air
I'm just assembling content based on what I already have. I mean look at this video right here. What am I doing?
I'm just walking you through
my process for creating
Content now overall might be wondering what types of things do I write down on the index cards or in these stories one thing is
Like I said I write down interesting facts or quotes or data
Or statistics on these these note cards
and the phone I often write the personal stories the reason why I put it on the phone by the way is because it's the
Most important thing you can do is write it as it happens because you'll never remember to write it later
So I always like to keep it with me on my phone the third thing
I like to write and sometimes this goes on an index card sometimes it goes on my phone, but I like to write
observations big observations small observations
I just like to spot things that are happening that I find interesting and I write there down
When I find it interesting let me give you an example if I'm walking down the subway
And I see an interesting advertisement that makes me stop and read it I already can't sleep
I'm less concerned about the ad I'm more concerned about
Why did I just stop and read that so I always take a picture of that advertisement?
Knowing that it got my attention
Sometimes if I'm walking down the subway if I see someone else stop and read an advertisement
I'll take a picture of that ad even though it didn't grab my attention. I'm interested in the fact that it grabs their attention
Some other things I'll write down
I was going for a walk in the morning about six o'clock in the morning
And I saw a dad a mom and a son who had to be about 10 or 11 years old they were all in their
Workout clothes and they were running up Central Park West in Manhattan, and I was thinking like oh
That's so cool
Like a family's exercising together before work in school, so I wrote that down like many observations like this now
I don't know
How I'm gonna use these observations?
The key is to just get in the habit of writing them down. Maybe in six months from now
I'm gonna put it in a video like I'm doing right now as an example
But you never know when these interesting observations, or stories will become useful to you
And you need to get into daily habit of writing those
Observations and those stories down the same is true for when you're watching videos like this
Or if you're watching or reading an article you need to get in a habit of like writing index cards about all this stuff
I mean like here
And here's the thing the key is to get in the habit of doing this don't judge your idea
When you have it just write it down judge it later because the bottom line is
Some of the stuff you write down is gonna be stupid and that's okay
It's not your place to make the judgment about whether it's good or bad
It's your place to record it and figure out if it's useful later. I sometimes throw out index cards
I sometimes delete notes. It's just part of the gig. You just need the habit of doing it, but how do I actually?
sit down and create but
Well it starts with these these little notes and stories. I pull it all together
I'll bake oh this will be interesting this will be interesting this will be interesting and then I'll put it all together into a narrative
Of some times and as I'm kind of looking through the narrative. I'll be like okay. This is interesting. This is interesting. This is interesting
This is not interesting get rid of it when you're trying to create content
Sometimes you might feel compelled to include every single little detail
But actually as Neil Strauss said you're gonna assume nobody cares about
What you're doing nobody wants to read what you're writing
so you have to go through this narrative that you're assembling from your stories and your facts and
Ask yourself if I remove this sentence does the story change the answer is no
removing hey
Cut that part put me to sleep all right
you always want to cut everything down to the bare minimum because people won't have the attention span to
Continue through your content or your video if there's a lot of superfluous stuff
I mean if you're thinking about this right now. You might think well there. It doesn't look perfect
You kind of repeat yourself in some of your earlier videos and you're right
I do, but it's a process and just knowing that it's there means you get better. I'm doing a daily vlog now
I've never done daily vlog before so I'm not a hundred percent
Familiar with what I should cut in or where I should cut out. I'm getting better once
I put together the story or the piece of content. I'm creating after I assemble it I often test it on people sometimes
I'll just tell the story to the bar reset the coffee shop other times
I'll hit up one of my employees and say hey, what do you think of this sometimes?
I'll call one of my family members or friends, and I'll run the idea by them
this is an important part of the content creation process and the reason why it's important is because
Sometimes you have an idea that you think is amazing but nobody cares, and you will never know that
Unless you first ask somebody's opinion now you can't take their opinion to heart because remember
Not they're not always your ideal
And that's okay, but generally you're trying to tell a story and you think it's gonna make someone laugh
And you tell ten people and they don't laugh. It's not funny at this point based on some of the early reactions
I'll then decide if I want to continue through with that piece of content
Sometimes I I'll not get the reaction that I want and I'll decide to publish it anyway other times
I'll get the reaction want I'll publish it sometimes
I just will delete that piece of content you have to make that gut decision in
The beginning now if you've never created content before you're probably not equipped to make that decision right now
And that's okay always getting the habit of shipping the content first and just seeing how people react and then using those
Reactions to figure out a better way, and that's how I do it now if you like this video like my youtube channel
Wait keep liking it's our channel
You'll find a way like my channel you know subscribe to my channel hit the
Notification bell and then leave a comment below this video and let me know how you create dork content
I'm keenly interested to see how you do it
And I want to know if it matches up with how I do it and on that note I'll see you in the next video