Garbage In, Garbage Out

Someone read my post for the first time and was very surprised that we had been living together for many weeks, and he had no idea that I did that every day. Two Wise Brothers and the Vanishing Note was a rather hilarious post of mine. And then he asked about how I get my ideas. Until then, I had never really thought in that direction.

The first thing I do before writing is to spend a few minutes warming up my fingers. I usually use my PC to write (or type) because I am way faster on the keyboard there, but I "get in the zone" quicker when I warm up.

The warm-up is mostly for my fingers, but it has somehow turned into a therapeutic experience that helps me centre my mind. I'd go on to any of my favourite touch typing websites and type away for a couple of minutes.

Writing about my experiences is pretty much the easiest for me to do, and it could be about anything. What mostly inspires that are conversations and activities. A conversation with someone could lead to something that I'd consider sharing my thoughts on, or perhaps an outing or something.

What I have been doing more of lately, though, is listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos. I have a few favourite podcasters whose content focuses on tech, self-help, productivity, and career. Spending hours listening to different episodes, like I did today, helps me learn, and that just give me ideas on what to write for the day or another day.

I don't easily find myself drawn to reading books. Books hold a lot of information within their pages, truly, but I lean towards audio to help me learn stuff, hence the podcasts. These days, I am really feeling Ali Abdaal's vibes, so I have been watching a lot of his videos, especially the ones with his insights on the books that he's read, and then his Deep Dive podcast episodes with other brilliant minds.

As I have been leaning towards tech and consuming more of such content, I could find certain topics interesting and then publish about them. TechCrunch, The Verge, and Engadget are my favourites. When I do find a topic I find interesting in any of them, I then go on to do a lot more research. And then one thing leads to another: I learn a lot more, my enthusiasm builds, and then, voila, inspiration lands.

Writing about films is something I do a lot. All I have to do to be inspired is simply watch a movie, and then I could write a review of it. It's not every film that I write about, though. Some can be...mehhh, and I'd rather just move on with my life without them. Some, however, could either be really good or really great, and then I could potentially write about them.

Despite how much I consume daily per se, I still find myself needing a little bit of extra juice to go on. It's easy for me to get caught up with other things pretty quickly, and then the day's almost over before you know it. Somehow, I fall back on these few ways to get me started, and then something shows up at the end of the day.