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Blogging is more than just writing on a computer. Embracing a creative lifestyle - taking pictures, writing notes, and storing ideas in various forms - is essential to creating content that engages you and your audience.
So being inspired by others and creating content on a regular basis
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is easier said than done.
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No matter what field you're in, adapting and embracing a creative lifestyle
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is going to be your best bet to do this.
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So in my book Amazing Things Will Happen,
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one of the tools that I am a big, big proponent for is using a notebook—
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a regular, old-fashioned paper notebook.
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It's something I carry with me no matter where I am in the world
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and something that maybe will work for you.
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You never know when an idea is going to strike, and you want to write it down
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and capture it.
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If you're not a big fan of paper—if you're all digital—get a tool such as Evernote.
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I'm a big fan of that as well. I call it my virtual brain.
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It doesn't matter where I am—I might take a picture of something.
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I may record an audio note. I may just scratch something down very fast—
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a great tool to capture those things that inspire you
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that could later turn into a great blog post.
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Now depending on what kind of content you're creating you may not believe
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this next one, but I firmly believe that part of that creative
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and content-focused lifestyle is taking a lot of photos.
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I take them everywhere, whether it's from my little phone or my big camera,
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I'm taking photos all the time. Why?
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Because you never know when that's going to be able to be used
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in a blog post. Blog posts need images
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When they get shared, no matter what the network is,
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it's going to pull an image, and you're going to need images for that.
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I take photos everywhere, and the more photos you take the more
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it'll become part of your life, and you'll find inspiration from them.
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Now one final part of this that's very, very important is you have to make sure
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that all these ideas that you're writing down, whether it's Evernote
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or a notebook and all the pictures, that you're organizing them
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and you can get them later on.
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There's nothing worse than going, "Where was that great idea
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I came up with for a blog post?" and not being able to find it.
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There's a million different ways to do this. Figure out what works best for you.
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This is one of the reasons I personally love Evernote,
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because it allows me to quickly search for ideas.
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I can search based on location, I can search based on words,
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and it finds them very, very fast.
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That works for me. Figure out what works for you.
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But make sure you don't lose those ideas.
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There's nothing worse than being inspired and never being able to go back
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and find that idea and turning it into a great blog post.
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