What Happens When You Sit On Content Ideas
I’ve been slowly starting to unpack some of my things at our new house when I realized I’m missing my trusty can of Febreze.
The can of Febreze air freshener that’s lived in my bathroom in TWO separate rentals. Like, it lasted THAT long.
I bought it while living in my first ever rental, then took it with me when I moved into my next apartment.
And it would’ve lasted through this current move, too, but I must have thrown it out at some point during the chaos. Which, kinda sad 🙁
*adds Febreze to shopping list*
If you’re wondering how a can of air freshener could possibly last that long, well, I don’t know either. It’s not like I was precious about using it. I wasn’t trying to save it. Anytime I felt the need to spray it, I did. Liberally.
And yet it never seemed to make a difference on how much product was actually left in there.
I mean I genuinely don’t get how it was still kicking. It’s like that thing was endless.
You’re Not A Squirrel. Stop Hoarding Your Ideas.
If you’re hoarding up ideas like you’re squirreling away nuts for the winter, your content is probably suffering because of it.
Even if you DO actually identify as a squirrel (hi fellow ADHDer!), you’re not excused from the table just yet. 🐿️
Maybe you think if you use your ideas liberally, you’ll run out. Or you’ll hit writer’s block faster. OR you save them because you think you’ll be able to do them better justice later, when you have more experience or have worked with more clients. So you ration them and hold back.
If that’s you, I want to challenge you to instead think of your idea generation like my unlimited Febreze can.
That might seem pretty weird, but hear me out okayyy.
The more you actually USE your ideas, the more ideas you generate. They’re not a finite resource that depletes. Instead, idea generation is muscle that gets stronger the more you use it.
Truly, the ideas start coming and they do not stop coming.
When you hoard your ideas, this is what happens:
Your current content gets diluted.
When you’re actively holding back your best stuff, the things you DO share feel watered down or even half-hearted. And your audience can tell you’re not giving them the good stuff. I think we’ve all been personally victimized at some point by a PDF freebie that we immediately trashed because it wasn’t useful. Don’t be THAT person.
You overthink what goes where.
Is this idea “too good” to be a free resource? Should I save this for another platform? What if I don’t use this idea now so I can turn it into a series… someday? I call this the Container Trap – when you’re spending so much mental energy trying to “categorize” your ideas and all it does is confuse you and suck your creativity dry.
Your “saved” ideas go stale.
That brilliant insight you had six months ago that you were saving for the “right” moment? You’ll forget it exists, or by the time you finally get around to using it, it won’t be relevant anymore. I had an amazing idea about a piece I could write about the Barbie movie… but it’s about to be 2026 and honestly, who cares at this point? The world has moved on.
You create artificial scarcity.
Even if you know you’re capable of generating more ideas, you may have convinced yourself you only have a handful of “really good” ones in the tank. But that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because to come up with “really good” ideas, you have to generate and execute a LOT of “meh” and “pretty good” ones along the way.
Ideas aren’t like actual nuts that a squirrel needs to hoard up and ration for winter survival. They’re like my endless can of Febreze – the more you use them, the more you realize they’re not going anywhere. But if you don’t use them, you’ll get nothing out of it AND you’ll never reach all the untapped potential waiting in the can.
Your best content comes from sharing about what you’re genuinely excited and passionate about RIGHT NOW.
So if you’ve been “saving up” an idea for just the right time or some special occasion that, let’s be real, you haven’t actually planned or put in your calendar – my challenge to you is to use that idea up THIS WEEK.
(This newsletter is the result of me doing exactly that! It’s been sitting in my content idea bank for agesss, and I thought I’d be able to do it better justice if I executed it later, but instead I decided to do it NOW.)