Create More Than You Consume

A lesson from The Art and Business of Online Writing by Nicolas Cole

Is it okay to consume content all the time? No matter how good the content you are consuming is, the act of creating, or in other words, working on a project or craft, should outweigh the amount of time you consume content.

Just the act of consciously doing activities that count as creating can help to balance the scales of creating and consuming.

This newsletter is about learning, and part of the learning process is knowing when to act on the knowledge you have learned in comparison to the amount of knowledge and experience you already have.

Let’s take a closer look at the quote from The Art and Business of Online Writing by Nicolas Cole:

The number of hours you spend consuming should NEVER equal or EXCEED the number of hours you spend creating.

Even though this quote is specifically for people who create or write content online, it can be applicable to other areas of life.

For example, if you enjoy watching movies, there is an entertaining factor to this, but it is also time-consuming. You may never plan on becoming a director or a writer of movies so just realize how you are spending that time and what you are going to do with that experience from watching the movie. It could create great conversations in the future or maybe you could turn it into a hobby of writing criticisms or reviews of the movie. Sometimes these hobbies can help you to develop skills that are beneficial for other areas of your life.

I'm personally a bit biased when it comes to this topic because I am a writer and a creator of content. The applicability of this topic in other fields of work has to be thought about in more creative ways.

But the basic core message of this newsletter edition is that creating is often more important than consuming.

The image above is just an example and not an actuality. I am personally not even that productive when it comes to creating, but I at least strive to be.

Now you have a task to do, be more aware of how you spend your time consuming any type of content and compare that to how much time you spend actually doing something. The doing should outweigh the passive activities.

What are some strategies you use to create more than you consume?

🗨️Share your thoughts in the comments.