A cheat sheet for mining content ideas from your daily life
Updated: Sep 17, 2021
Look around you, and there’s enough material to fuel a lifetime’s stock of blog entries, social media posts, videos, and more
Who says you have to wait for inspiration to strike or a trip of a lifetime to materialise for your blog or social media posts to happen?
Observe your daily routine activities—there’s infinite potential in them to become page-view-driving blog posts and shareable social-media content.
Who knows, if you have enough content covered, you could even have a book or TV show in your hands! (Fun fact: PiKu & ViRu was born from a series of journal entries around a period in my life! Because I had these notes ready, writing the first draft became much easier for me. Buy/download/read/review the book if you haven’t yet.)
This is your life—unique in its own way and, hence, a story in itself! You don’t really need something extraordinary to take place.
So, how can you mine content from your daily activities at home? I’ll show you right here. If you have any ideas of your own, please feel free to add them in the comments below. In no time, you’ll have a huge content bank that will act as your own property and legacy. Imagine.
Activity #1: Watching movies and TV shows
What to do: Use a note-taking app to jot down thoughts and observations on your phone. This makes review writing and even brainstorming for your own movie or show so much easier later on. Let these notes be in shorthand or your own code lingo. Feel free to ditch all rules of grammar and language.
Even easier: Save your thoughts, opinions, musings on a recording app, then transcribe them later while writing a review or scripting your own film or show. Or turn the lot into a podcast!
Even, even easier: Take a pic of yourself watching the movie or of the device in its setting.
Even, even, even easier: Screenshot a scene and ask your friends/followers to guess what movie it is. You could weave a contest around this.
Even, even, even, even easier: Put out your watch-list. Make a log of all the movies and shows you’ve already watched. Do one-word reviews for each.
Activity #2: Cooking
What to do: If possible, set up a camera for a top-down shooting of your cooking, then edit the clips into recipe videos.
Even easier: Write or record one recipe a day. Even if it’s something basic, do it.
Even, even easier: Clip some recipes from the internet, try them out, add your own tips, make them your own.
Activity #3: Decluttering
What to do: Let your decluttering plan become a script and use that to shoot your own “how to declutter” video. You can ask someone to help out with the shoot if you need them.
Even easier: Share before–after photos of your decluttering exercise.
Activity #4: Handling mundane objects
What to do: Make a list of these objects and look for references on stock-photo sites so you aren’t lost for photoshoot ideas. Even a spoon can translate into an arresting picture if you know how to position it!
Activity #5: Browsing old albums
What to do: Click pictures of each and every photo from your past, and you have an enormous bank of throwback content ready! Browse through similar Instagram posts and see what hashtags they’re using.
Activity #6: Reading books
What to do: Take pics of yourself reading.
Even easier: Try to read on the Kindle app. Jot down thoughts, mark out new words (the new words you learn can also make for great learning posts!), see how you’d have written the book differently.
Even, even easier: Take pics of the book in various settings—check out references on stock-photo sites for ideas. Share pics of your bookshelf, too.
Even, even, even easier: Download an app that tracks your book-reading. Then, flaunt each day’s progress on your SM Stories. This will also make you accountable to the world for your reading activity and, thus, help you make reading a daily, regular habit.
Even, even, even, even easier: Publish a list of books you want to read in a particular time frame.
Activity #7: Eating
What to do: Take photos of as many meals as possible.
Even easier: Make a bucket list of all the foods you want to try.
Activity #8: Ordering food from outside
What to do: Take food shots. Speak aloud your thoughts so you have a review.
Even easier: Make a list of all the restaurants you want to eat from.
Activity #9: Social-media and internet browsing
What to do: Bookmark your favourite posts for inspiration, then do your own version or take on them.
Even easier: Turn your old wisecracking content on Facebook, Twitter, or Quora into quote posts for Instagram. Stitch together multiple photos into a video or GIF.
Even, even easier: See if there’s an Instagram version of what you’ve just shared on Twitter and put it on your Insta Stories.
Even, even, even easier: Play online quizzes (such as those on BuzzFeed) and share your results with the world.
Even, even, even, even easier: Share your friends’ creations, businesses, or events. It costs nothing, yet it’ll do your friends a lot more deal of good than anything else.
Activity #10: Exercising
What to do: Take pics of yours while exercising or click a post-workout selfie.
Even easier: Download a fitness-tracking app and share your daily achievements with the world. (Even if you don’t log 10,000 steps a day, that’s alright. The public motivation will only help you further.)
Even, even easier: Flaunt your diet and exercise plans and logs.
Even, even, even easier: Share the video link of the workout you did on a particular day.
Activity #11: Music
What to do: Sing something and share it on social media or through an app like Smule.
Even easier: Make a playlist and share it with the world.
Even, even easier: Share the link or video of the song you’ve just listened to.
Activity #12: Dating
What to do: Write out your dream date (refer to my previous blog post on this subject for ideas) and log your dating anecdotes.
Even easier: Make a list or vision board of all the experiences you want to try with your partner.
Activity #13: Work
What to do: Browse for your favourite work looks and curate them. (This is also your chance to take a shot at affiliate marketing). Collect your dream workplace destinations and make a vision board out of them. Note down the qualities of your ideal boss or coworker.
Even easier: Take pics of your workspace and share them.
Even, even easier: Tell us what your schedule is like.
Even, even, even easier: List out the skills you’d like to learn.
Activity #14: Self-reflection
What to do: Share your life lessons and scatter them over a series of blog posts, based on the theme.
Even easier: Do you have any unanswered questions or problems? Compile all of them.
Even, even easier: List out your short-, medium-, and long-term goals. Put them out into the larger world.
Even, even, even easier: Share links of the motivational talks you’ve just watched or listened to. Talk about the charities you donate, contribute to, or volunteer for.
Activity #15: Shopping
The obvious: Share a picture of your shopping cart—offline or online. Share product reviews.
What else to do: Make a wish list of your favourite products and share them with the world. Feel free to include expensive luxury items, too.
Even better: Share whatever product research you do and guide your friends and followers on what to purchase.
Activity #16: Article reading
The obvious: Share links to the articles you’ve read.
What else to do: Blog your opinion on an article, share it on social media, leave a comment below the article along with your blog URL.
Even easier: Compile a list of articles you’ve read in a particular time frame and make a blog post out of it.
Activity #17: Conversations
The obvious: Share any interesting conversations that you overhear or are a part of—with any need for permissions taken care of, of course.
Even better: Whenever you get to interact with an esteemed personality, ask them for life or career advice and share it as a quote post.
Activity #18: Playing with your pets
What to do: Film or click yourselves in a variety of settings and poses. Ditto for any soft toys you may have. Refer to stock-photo sites for ideas and inspiration.
Activity #19: Gaming
The obvious: Share results, as well as frustrations.
Even easier: Make a list of games you want to play. Make a list of your all-time favourite games.
Activity #20: Grooming
What to do: Try out make-up and hairstyling tutorials and provide your own take on them. Review and compare various products.
Even easier: Make a series of “look books”.
Even, even easier: Share your skin- and hair-care routine.