There is nothing more annoying than opening up a social platform for a specific purpose (to find a recipe, to check on a client’s analytics, to reply to someone) and then wasting the following fifteen minutes on genuine bullsh*t.

We are frying our brains. But actually.

It’s well-documented that social media, much like drugs/alcohol/gambling, triggers the release of dopamine at alarming rates.

But, let’s be real: You obviously know that. It’s not groundbreaking news that social media is bad. The real question is, what can we do about it?

When you figure that out, let me know. 🤣

No, but in all seriousness, here are some findings from my personal quest to get my brain back.

Let’s do a little exercise: Tell me the last three Reels you watched. Or the last three LinkedIn posts you’ve commented on. Or the last three memes you giggled at.

Not the last ten, or even five: Just the last three.

Can’t remember, huh? That’s okay; you’re in good company.

I like to compare this to that feeling you get when you enter a room in your house (looking for a tool, or a book, or what have you) and all of a sudden you’re like: What the hell am I doing in here?

We consume SO MUCH content that it’s impossible to get anything valuable from it.

We might think we’re doing “research,” especially if we work in the marketing/social spaces, but the truth is we’re just wasting time, energy, and potentially grey matter.

Here’s what I’ve been doing to combat this problem:

We need to make things harder for ourselves. In our convenience culture, we’ve been pampered with treats; various ways of building ease into our lives, both private and professional.

If a robot can come up with an idea, how good can that idea really be?

I’m not gonna sit here and pretend to be a saint; I use AI. I work in marketing, for God’s sake. But I don’t use it to write.

If you’ve been in the practice of using AI to write for you, I encourage you to isolate at least one aspect of your writing (your newsletter, for instance, or your LinkedIn content) and make it an AI no-no zone.

Proud to say that my fingers are typing away at this newsletter.

Also, let’s think about it logistically: How many times have you had to wrangle with your LLM to give you something of quality? Something usable? How many times have you had to tweak your prompt to get a half-decent post?

Lowkey, it’s often the same amount of time it would take to just think it up yourself.

My motto: Treat it like an unpaid intern. If you’d trust an unpaid intern with a task, pass it on. If not, it’s probably something you should take the reins on.

I think that we’re reaching a point where people are pretty fed up with the slop they’ve been fed. This is a good thing!

The more starved people are for good content, the more likely they’ll eat up your original stories, genuine opinions, and real lessons.

Don’t worry about repeating yourself; as we covered, no one remembers anything they see regardless.

And, when in doubt, turn to these two tried and true ideation methods:

And lastly, don’t be your own worst critic, okay?

With all the slop content out there, any idea you come up with organically is worth acting on. If it flops, so what? You tried, and now you have data to inform your future attempts.

All in all, post anyway!

P.S. If you're struggling with what to post or how to make your content strategy actually work without selling your soul, reply to this email. I read every single one.