How To Find Killer Article Ideas

If you’re stuck for ideas on what to write, this post will rescue you

Sometimes coming up with ideas for articles is super-easy. At other times, we can just sit there for hours not knowing what to write.

I’ve often heard it said that writing every day for Medium is a bad thing. The theory is that you’ll run out of ideas of what to write.

This may be true for some people, not not for everyone. There are some prolific writers on the site, and they never seem to run out of ideas.

But what about the rest of us?

I have come up with three ways to find articles ideas that work well for me.

1. Keep a notepad handy at all times

This may sound obvious, but it wasn’t to me when I first started.

I’d be out somewhere and would suddenly have an idea for an amazing article. It was such an awesome idea, that I planned to start on it as soon as I got home.

No need to write it down, I thought. How could I forget such a wonderful idea?

Then I’d arrive home, sit down at my laptop and realize that I’d completely forgotten what the idea was.

So, I started writing down any ideas I had right away.

I use the notes app on my phone for this, as I always have my phone with me.

2. Brainstorm

The second thing that I do is sit down with a blank piece of paper and come up with 20 article ideas. It doesn’t matter how crazy they, I write them down anyway.

Once I have my 20 ideas written down, I go over them and see if any are worth moving forward with. There are usually at least one or two.

For those that I like, I add them to the drafts section of Medium. I’ll add a working title and a few notes about my idea.

Whenever I sit down to write, I then have a few article ideas that I can start on right away.

3. Read

The final way I find article ideas is to read widely. While I’m reading, ideas will pop into my head. It’s important not to copy other articles though. You need to put your own spin on things or write something that another author has missed.

Hope these ideas also work for you. What do you do to get more article ideas? Leave a comment and let me know.