Curiosity Flywheels: From Consumption to Creation
The internet is full of ideas. With the touch of a button, you can access resources to learn anything.
But there's a problem here. It feels good to consume this information. Too good.
Following smart people on Twitter, reading books, listening to podcasts - these activities feel productive. You're "researching," right?
But after months of consuming, you're no further along. The ideas flowed in and then right back out.
Sound familiar?
This used to be me. I was consuming to consume. Procrastinating. Convincing myself that I was being productive.
But there was no action. No output. No learning.
So I switched the lens. I stopped the passive consumption and started consuming to create.
The result? Dozens of essays, hundreds of tweets, and the exploration of thousands of ideas.
The engine? My curiosity flywheel.
The Flywheel
Flywheels are momentum machines. Their initial spin is difficult, jarring, and littered with resistance.
But once they get going, there's no stopping them. Before you know it, the flywheel is churning faster and faster under its own weight.
Flywheels are a powerful framework for system design. Their two key components:
- Every step in the flywheel reinforces the next step.
- Every spin of the flywheel is faster than the previous spin.
With this framework in mind, I set out to create a flywheel for idea exploration and content creation.
The Curiosity Flywheel
The goal of my flywheel: create a system that made idea exploration and quality content generation inevitable.
The result: a seven-step flywheel.
- Capture: save and store atomic ideas.
- Converse: talk with others about those ideas.
- Curate: gather resources to explore the ideas.
- Consume: dive into those resources.
- Clarify: distill the ideas in my own words.
- Connect: make connections between other ideas.
- Create: produce a deliverable and share it.
1. Capture
Everything starts with the atomic idea capture.
Ideas can pop up anywhere, at any time, from anyone. But without a capture system, poof - they're gone.
My system has two parts: capture and review.
To capture ideas, I keep inboxes everywhere. On my iPhone home screen, I use the Drafts app. On my computer, I use Todoist quick capture. In the shower, I keep a waterproof whiteboard. In my back pocket, I keep a small field notes notebook.
Every idea has a home and it's not in my head.
At the end of every week, I review these inboxes. I throw away most of the ideas - and that's okay. Because hidden underneath the bad ideas are a few hidden gems.
This system frees space in my mind to have ideas, not store them. Now, ideas flow endlessly. Every quality idea finds a home in one giant Notion table. I think of these ideas as simmering on the back burner, waiting to be explored.
2. Converse
Conversations are my idea refinery. When I want to further explore an idea, I start talking about it.
I have three types of conversation: with myself, with others, and with an audience.
My favorite way to explore an idea is talking it out with myself. I pop in my Airpods, hit record using Otter.ai, and take off for a long walk. By the end, I've fully fleshed out the idea and Otter transcribes it for me.
I also schedule at least four calls per week with other creative people. I let them know beforehand a few of the ideas I'm thinking about and ask them to send me some as well. In fact, this entire essay came from a conversation with my friend Richie.
I find it helpful to get other's perspectives on my ideas. I also record these with Otter.ai so I can read the transcript later.
Finally, I tweet ideas out regularly to see what resonates. This is usually hit or miss and doesn't carry much signal. But occasionally, an idea gets a lot of attention. I double down on exploring those.
3. Curate
Once I'm set on exploring an idea, I start to gather resources to learn more.
I find these in a few ways. First, I’ll reach out to anyone I know who knows more about the idea than I do. I’ll ask if they can point me in the right direction or have any strong suggestions. This is my starting point.
From there, I dive down the rabbit hole. Books, podcasts, essays, tweets - I gather all of them. I go for volume here, knowing I’ll separate the signal from the noise later.
I save all of this information to Instapaper I make a new folder for this idea and dump everything into it. Sometimes this curation is a sprint where I find and save everything in an hour. Other times, it’s a marathon, methodically curating resources over a longer period of time.
4. Consume
With resources gathered, I dive in. This is where the creation lens comes in. I'm consuming with two goals in mind: understanding and creation. This leads to active, purposeful consumption.
The method I use is called the one-pager. When exploring an idea, my goal is to create a one-page document with all of the key points. This helps me cut through the noise and focus on the signal.
To find these key points, I take notes. Lots of them.
For essays and blog posts, I'll highlight in Instapaper and sync them to Notion using Readwise.
For podcasts, I crack open a fresh page in the Drafts app. I listen to podcasts at 2x or 3x speed, depending on the speaker. 90% of any given podcast episode is useless.
Listening at this speed is like skimming. When I hear an idea that resonates, I slow it down, soak it in, and take notes. Over time, I’ve developed a knack for recognizing juicy parts of a conversation while glossing over the rest.
5. Clarify
With resources consumed and notes taken, I clarify the ideas in my words.
I start crafting my one-pager, synthesizing the ideas into individual headers and bullet points. I pretend I’m responsible for teaching it to someone else, keeping only the most important points and getting rid of the rest.
I crack open a fresh page in Notion and aggregate all of my notes. One by one I comb through them, refining them and extracting the value.
This is where the learning happens. All the notes and highlights in the world won’t teach me anything. It’s this process of clarification and synthesis that cements them in my head. By the end of this process, I’ve got a good grasp on the idea in a way that makes sense to me.
6. Connect
The last step before creating is connecting. I'll scan through other ideas I'm exploring or have explored in the past, looking to make novel connections.
This part is difficult. These connections aren't obvious and take some digging.
I'll start with a bit of search through my Notion workspace for different keywords. I try to find 10 ideas or past pieces of content that are reasonably related. Then, I force myself to come up with 10 possible connections, even if they don't make total sense.
Sometimes it's a new idea and there's no connections to be made. But other times I come away with a whole new perspective, idea, or way of thinking.
Over time, these connections compound into a thick web of wisdom.
7. Create
The last step of the flywheel is to create. Producing a deliverable stamps the idea in my head forever. It creates an asset that I can slice, dice, remix, and revisit time and time again.
The medium doesn't matter, as long as I'm creating. Some ideas end up as nothing more than tweets. Others short, atomic essays. Some others become long-form essays, how-to guides, Notion templates, or even digital products.
Spinning your flywheel
This seven-step flywheel is my engine for creation. With it, I've written dozens of essays, hundreds of tweets, and explored thousands of ideas.
Now that it's spinning, nothing can stop it. Others interact with what I create, leaving their feedback and presenting their own ideas. These ideas lead to more conversation, curation, consumption, clarification, connection, and creation.
On and on it spins, faster and faster.
But recall: the hardest part of spinning a flywheel is the initial spin.
If you're looking to start creating, here's my best advice: get started, do it every day, and be selfish.
While it looks like the best creators have it all figured out, they're adjusting on the fly. You won't have it figured out in the beginning. So get started and create something every day.
Once you start creating, be selfish.
Look at any of the most prolific creators. Their content has one thing in common: self-indulgence. They create the content they want to consume. They ask the questions they want answered. And they study the ideas that make them tick.
This is the only way to create sustainably. If you're scratching your own itch, it doesn't matter if other consume it. If they do, great. If not, it's still providing value to you.
So start spinning your flywheel today. Be selfish and start creating.