7 Ways to Create Content from Flow

Simple practices to help you create consistent, meaningful content without forcing yourself into rigid plans.

How do you create content consistently when you don’t want to plan everything out? How do you stay inspired, show up regularly, and still honor your intuition?

There’s something so appealing about a perfectly organized content calendar. 

The idea that you could map out your next three months or even an entire year of blog posts, podcast episodes, or videos, and never have to wonder what to create again. Just look at the plan, follow the plan, and stay on track.

I love the thought of everything being neat and decided and settled. 

But every time I try it, I run into the same problem: when the day comes to actually create the thing I planned I don’t want to. I’m not inspired. The topic feels flat.

And I don’t have any interest in building a business that forces me into a structure that makes me feel small. I want to create from flow. I want to sit down and make whatever wants to be made that day.

In this piece, I’m sharing seven simple ways to tap into flow. Practical things you can do to find ideas, choose topics naturally, and create content that feels alive, interesting, and true.

1. Journaling or Free Writing

I use this quite often.

I sit down in the morning with my journal and I just start writing whatever comes up.

Sometimes that’s just writing about how I feel that morning. What’s going through my head, what has been happening, or what I want to do that day. Or I write about an idea I had.

I just start writing and see where it leads me. I let the words flow out of me, and I write and write. I’m never going to show this to anyone. It’s just for myself.

But sometimes, along the way, I get an idea or I go deeper into an idea, and then suddenly I know what my next step is. I know what to do next. 

And then I usually just stop writing. The moment when I feel that call to action I stop writing and start creating straight away.

I really like this way of tapping into my flow and intuition to see what’s next.

2. Meditation

Meditation is another nice thing to do in the morning.

I am still learning how to meditate by myself without guidance. I definitely still like guided meditations that calm me and create a certain peace of mind. 

But sometimes I can also just sit for a few minutes and focus on my breathing without listening to anything. I find that very beneficial.

Quite often I don’t want to do it because I think, oh, that’s boring — just sitting and focusing on my breathing. But that’s just my mind finding it boring, because I know that if I do it, it has a huge impact. 

If I can really calm down and focus on my breathing, breathing in and breathing out, and become still — not forcing my mind to be quiet but just letting my thoughts pass like clouds — then it usually gets me into a very nice, relaxed state.

And sometimes it makes ideas bubble up as well, sometimes a bit later. So that can be a nice tool too.

3. A Walk or a Drive

Moving can really help bring up ideas.

When I go for a walk, I either listen to a podcast or I don’t listen to anything and just walk — just listening to my own thoughts. 

Quite often I get an idea while doing that.

The same for driving. If I drive into town, I either listen to a podcast, music, or I just listen to my thoughts. Sometimes I need to pull over and write down an idea. 

This is actually how the idea for this podcast came to me yesterday. I was in the car and I had this idea and had to pull in to write down some notes so I wouldn’t forget. 

Then I kept driving and kept having ideas.

Luckily, there was a traffic jam. I got into evening traffic and really enjoyed it because it gave me all these little moments to jot my ideas down.

4. Mind Mapping

This is another tool you can do in your journal. 

Just write down an idea for an episode or another piece of content.

If you have a certain niche or topic you usually talk or write about, you can come up with four or five areas within that topic. Then choose the one you feel drawn to that morning and create a mind map around it.

Write down everything that comes to mind related to this area. Maybe one of those spark your interest. 

Then take that spark and create another mind map with it, writing down all the things related to that.

You go deeper and deeper into the topic that interests you. You follow the feeling of “Oh, I want to do something with this. I want to go deeper here.”

This is another way to find a topic to write about and map it out as you go.

5. Record Yourself Talking

This is something I’ve been doing quite often recently. I plug in my microphone, press record, and just start talking.

Because I always feel a bit intimidated in the beginning, I tell myself I don’t have to use the beginning of my recording. 

Usually, it takes a little time for me to get into it.

Today, for example, I pressed record and started talking with my hoarse morning voice about wanting to get rid of my morning voice and get used to talking again, and finding out what to say. It always takes a while for me.

I’m still not feeling super confident about having a podcast, but it’s definitely getting better. And I know that before I publish anything, I can always edit. 

I can cut things out, take out the “um’s” and the silence, or remove mistakes although I don’t want to take out all of them, because part of what I’m doing here is showing how to be real. 

I want to accept myself as I am right now, not as a super polished version.

But of course, I can improve things a little if I want.

6. Solve Your Own Problems (and Share About It)

I love this one. Ask yourself a question.

If you have a problem related to your topic — for example, one of my topics is how to start building a creative online business — you’ll always have new questions. So I ask myself a question and then look for answers.

And those answers can become content.

This episode is exactly that. I was reading about content calendars and thinking, I want to do that. I want to have it all planned out. 

But I know from experience I won’t follow through. I’ll plan it out and then not use it. I’ve done that before.

Or if I try to use it, it makes me feel small and closed in. It makes my world smaller. When everything is planned out for the next three or twelve months, it takes the excitement out of having an online business. I don’t want that. I want to look at each new day in a new and exciting way.

So then I had this question:
What do I do about it? How can I create content regularly without running out of ideas if I don’t plan it all out?

I wrote down the question and started jotting down ideas. Brainstorming answers. You can always look up things if you don’t know, but before you do, I would always first look at what comes from yourself.

7. Notice When You Have Your Best Ideas

This is a simple one: observe yourself. When do you usually get ideas?

Is it in the shower? During housework? Maybe during repetitive tasks?

Take a few days and pay attention. See what works for you.

These are my seven ideas for how to create content from flow.

I think what it comes down to is: you need to be comfortable with not knowing. You need to be comfortable with not having a plan and taking things day by day.

Just trust that there are endless ideas inside you — ideas you can write about or talk about. And they will come out if you give them space. They’re already there.

So what is it that wants to come out of you?