The Problem with Creating Content Consistently
I started striding across the stage.
"Arabica beans are delicious. They make coffee that looks... like THIS."
A picture of coffee grounds steeping in a glass jug appeared behind my head and on my confidence monitor, just below the stage in front of me.
"And it's served in places that look... like THIS."
"...to people who look something... like THIS GUY."
This hipsterish dude came next, with those glorious fingerless gloves -- a feature I would always lean into for a laugh. ("Look, you can go ALL glove or NO glove. There is no halfway.")
And so, Hipster McFingertips appeared on screen.
For 0.2 seconds.
Because right before I could land the joke...
...the screen went black.
Oh.
I fumbled for the clicker. Forward, back, forward, back. Nothing worked. Nothing appeared.
Oh no.
Ohhhh no-no-no-no-no.
I'd been prowling the stage towards a punchline. Then the A/V system flatlined.
Oh no.
* * *
This disastrous moment happened during a keynote several years ago. The event was at Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers (a pro football team, for those unfamiliar). No, the stage wasn't on the field. Turns out I've got no moves like Jagger. Still, it was pretty damn cool being on stage in the corporate events space inside the stadium, delivering my talk to an audience of 100 marketers.
Or at least, it would have been cool. I was sick as a dog and had been scarfing cough drops until the entire room seemed to smell of honey-lemon menthol. And OF COURSE at this prestigious venue, in front of this wonderful crowd, while I was sick, and following literal years of me perfecting this speech in rehearsals and on the road ... OF COURSE the A/V system crashed.
Oh no.
What happened next was a stark reminder of just how often the same habits that used to support our creativity can eventually hold us back.
Consistency Is Good
We generally define consistency in a pretty narrow way in creative work today. Whether thanks to the publishing cadences established by legacy media or the freneticism of the feed, when we say "publish consistently," we mostly think daily or weekly, with some larger projects like shows receiving that dreaded "biweekly" tag. (Why dreaded? The word is utter trash. It means every other week. It also means twice a week. Not both, together. But each definition is correct, separately.)
(I'm sorry, WHAT?)
(It's a trash word. Dump it.)
Anyway, I think we approach our work with a certain understanding: we need to publish consistently, and consistently means daily, weekly, or maybe biweekly fortnightly.
At first, this is a good thing.
At first, we all solve for the same two problems: skills and momentum. When we start anything that feels new and difficult, we need to improve our abilities and learn to move forward more freely, both because we want to see some traction and, even more importantly, find our footing. We need the confidence to create. Thus, shipping every day or every week makes sense.
Shipping consistently means practice. We put in more reps, more quickly, and improve through experience.
Shipping consistently means momentum. We learn what works, what others respond to, and what brings us energy too. We draw confidence from that experience.
The focus on skills makes sense, but we need to talk momentum quickly. It's not something we often think about. Too often, we think the problem before we create is one of brilliance. We need to make something GREAT, so we try to gather up all the answers we think we need to justify creating. Instead, we should create to find our answers -- often, better answers too. The real problem at first is one of inertia. If we're at a standstill, our tendency is to remain there. We set up our office, buy the tools, follow the expert, read the newsletter, listen to the show. We do things that feel productive. Meanwhile, we haven't produced anything.
We're trying to solve a problem we don't yet have: being great. The real problem is momentum. So solve THAT. Me, I like to slap down a bad draft -- a Frankenstein's monster of subheaders and outlined sections and full sentences and random bullets and links, all messily assembled on the page. That yields a bit of necessary momentum.
To improve our skills and to build momentum, we can rely on our consistency. So long as we hold tight to our desires to improve, creating SOMETHING on a regular basis is all we need.
This is echoed by Ira Glass, in the oft-cited quote (including by me) known as "The Gap." To paraphrase, he says (and I agree) that when we first start out, our taste far exceeds our abilities. We can picture great work. We can picture OUR great work. But we can't produce something that matches. So there's a gap between our taste and our skills. What we imagine creating is far different than what we can actually create. The lone way to close that gap, according to Ira Glass and, I think, most human beings who create for a living: create a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline, and make stuff. Make a version. Make it better. And persist.
(If you want a beautiful rendition of The Gap quote, performed by a chorus of creators like you, please enjoy this magical episode of Unthinkable.)
Develop your skills. Build momentum. Create consistently.
Consistency is good.
But, um ... also?
Consistency Is Bad
Before we talk about why, let's head back to Green Bay, to an exhausted, demoralized Jay, trying not to collapse like the A/V system did.
As a keynote speaker, you tend to act more like a comedian than the usual breakout talk at a business conference. You address the human condition, not a set of tactics ("how-to-think" not "how-to"). You have an act, which you bring with you to every stage to perform. You've rehearsed ad nauseam, and each speech is like practice for the next one, as you add and subtract bits and start to view the whole as a grouping of parts, any one of which can be swapped out to customize it effortlessly for a given audience.
The reason I mention this is just to illustrate how, early in a speaking career, consistency is your friend. Do it. Improve it. Do it again. Repeatedly. It may not be daily or weekly (aside from your rehearsal time -- mine was weekly for many years, whether or not I had a gig), but speaking is still in the same camp as our earlier section: consistency is good.
But the moment the A/V system crashed on me was the moment I realized just how much we can use consistency as a crutch -- along with its siblings: routines, habits, biases, and superstitions.
When I saw that black screen, I panicked. I had my set way of speaking, practiced over a ton of gigs and way more rehearsal time. The intricate interplay between my talk track, my movement, and my slides WAS the act. What was left without my slides? I'll tell you what.
Me.
Just me. That was the lone thing to bet on more fully. And so I did. Not because I was prepared to do so, but because I was forced to do so.
Sooner or later, we all need to force ourselves to bet it all on ourselves. To put ourselves all the way on the hook.
I took a deep breath, stifled yet another cough, and delivered the remaining 45 minutes of my talk without my slides. I stumbled off stage to applause and a VERY appreciative client. It might sound decently cool now, but understand: I had never before trusted my instincts on stage like that. But after being forced to do so, it felt like a whole new world of creative possibility was unlocked for me to explore -- on stages, in videos, on my show, everywhere.
What if I have another gear? What if good habits I've had for awhile are no longer as good as they seem?
Looking back, I see now just how much my initial focus on consistency became a crutch. I had set up my work a certain way, which served to solve the problems I had: skill development and momentum/confidence. But then, without realizing it, those stopped being my problems. Because creating consistently worked. I became plenty skilled and plenty confident enough to create my work. Now the task switched to creating my BEST work.
My problems had changed.
My practice had not.
I no longer needed to cling so closely to the techniques and behaviors that created my previous approach. I could use fewer slides in my speeches or even drop them entirely, opening the door for new types of performances -- even improvised material. I could rehearse less, or at least focus my rehearsal time on newer, narrower things I wanted to improve, rather than the entire speech end-to-end, every time. (I previously rehearsed the same speech 5-10 times before a gig at full energy in my office, despite having delivered most or all of that same talk dozens of times before. That served me well. Until it didn't.)
In short, I had the option to evolve. But I was in danger of not evolving.
Aren't we all?
In my speeches, on my show, in my writing, in everywhere I showed up, I learned I could trust myself more by clinging to consistency less. I could step out over the wire and create better, bolder work that took longer to create ... but also had a much bigger impact on my development and my business's.
I could have done better, seen better results, and had a great impact far sooner, but I'd become so proud of my own ability to be prolific that I never stopped to realize just how blind to my potential my pride had made me. I was in danger of slipping into stagnation.
In creative work, pride goes before the stall.
I got lucky. A change was forced upon me, and I had no choice but to face the fear. I literally had 200 eyes fixed on me. What could I do but continue? I had nothing else to bet on but myself. So I did.
What if you did too?
Are You Hiding Behind the Pride of Consistency?
It seems odd to say, but consistency can become a form of hiding. Stepping off the treadmill can feel scary. There's no one else to blame if things don't work.
Want to take twice as long to make something? Well, maybe now it needs to be twice as good. That's scary.
Didn't deliver? You can't blame the algorithm or the noise. You can't claim you followed the best practice, either. That safety net or maybe just easy way to rationalize what happened is now gone. You're no longer playing that game of daily or weekly slogging. You're playing your own game, betting on your own vision. You're on the hook.
Are you ready?
I'd guess yes. Far more than you assume.
At first, publishing consistently was a necessary habit to form for most of us, I'm sure. But I'm just as certain it can eventually morph into the very thing holding us back.
What would happen if you allowed yourself to marinate on a piece you were writing? To leave it, come back to it, to play with it, then edit it -- for the love of cheese, edit it?
What would happen if you disappeared from the feeds or the inboxes awhile, in order to create something so much more worthy of appearing in either place?
What if you created one A+ thing in three weeks, instead of three Bs? (It's funny how often the business world tries to convince us that Bs are enough. My response? Just capitalize that "s.")
What if you are actually ready to step off the stereotypically "consistent" treadmill ... to do something better?
I know it's tempting to point at today's theme and worry what might happen if it doesn't work.
Fine.
But what if it does?
Consistency is a tool. A tool is something you should control, but often, this particular tool can control you.
Don't let it.
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