Don’t try to start at the middle

When I’m coming up with ideas for videos or blog posts or melodies I often have a filtering process. It’s not very formal, but it helps pick out the ideas that are the best.

For writing music that often means improvising a bunch of different things until I come up with something that I like. I also will write multiple melodies down on a sheet of manuscript paper while I have a timer running. When the timer’s done I’ll cross out the ideas I don’t like.

I do the same thing if I’ve written a melody I like already. I’ll write down or play every single variation of it that I can think of. And I’ll write down or circle only the variations that I like.

I have multiple filters being added to this process that sift through all of the different ideas so I only end up with ideas that I think are interesting or useful.

This can be a useful tool to use while writing music because it takes some of the pressure off. The first idea you think of doesn’t need to be great. That’s what the filter is for. You don’t need to find all the variations that you like right away. Just find as many variations as you can. The filter will choose them later.

It separates everything into different steps so you don’t have to do everything at once.

I do something similar with my YouTube videos and blog posts.

Before I write a blog post I’ll brainstorm a bunch of different ideas and then go through and select topics that sound interesting and write about those.

Most of the YouTube videos I’ve created I’ve made after having written a blog post about that same idea. I’ll go through my old blog posts and find topics or posts that were interesting or I think could use some explaining. The posts that I think would make into good videos I’ll make note of and turn into videos.

These filters help streamline the process a little bit so that I can continue making videos and continue having topics to talk about.

Using this filtering process helps take some pressure off from the beginning. The beginning of starting something shouldn’t also be the middle and the end. The beginning can just be brainstorming as many ideas as possible. Then after that step is done filters can be used to pick out the useful ideas.

Don’t try to start at the middle.

ISJ