Quality of your Input and Output

I find it interesting that the common advice when communicating orally is to listen more than you speak but the same advice is reversed when creating content. People often say you should consume less and produce more.

I think in both cases it is the quality of the input and the output that matters. This is why I try and prune my inputs as much as possible to keep the quality high. I find that when I plan to read several things in my day I am less worried about the quality. If I set things aside and say “I am going to read one article this evening” I am much more likely to be critical of the source of the article.

I am trying to cut back on the majority of curated content and visit places like Reddit and HackerNews far less. The problem I find with curated content isn’t that the quality is low, it can be very high. The issue is that the curation is for the industry or group writ large, which doesn’t help me get my work done or get my juices flowing.

My Twitter feed is a much better source (for me) of content, this is curated by people I care about and they are sharing stuff because they think it is cool, not because they will get some internet points.

I thought Rob Walling made a great point in a recent episode of Startups for the Rest of Us when he said that even with podcasts podcasts he is a big fan of he would skip episodes that aren’t relevant to his current interests. This is something I want to try and do more of, just because I like one person’s blog doesn’t mean I need to read absolutely everything they write.

With regards to outputs, I still struggle with keeping my output quality high. Bear with me in that one :-)