Sowing the Seeds of Ideas

How I know what to write about and produce consistently

Photo by Francesco Gallarotti on Unsplash

This is a slight diversion from our normal ventures into sustainability in business to talk creativity. If this is a behind-the-scenes look you enjoy (or don’t), please reply and let me know.

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Altogether, I publish well over 100,000 words each year. I write but don’t publish many more. 

I write a mostly weekly newsletter, publish heaps of articles to GrowEnsemble.com, and script countless videos and now narrative podcasts. 

How do I decide what to write about? How do I keep producing with (relative) consistency? 

I see what's ready to harvest.  

Some days, the harvesting is good. I can be prolific, and if I'm aptly prepared (the right topic, research, and motivation come together), I can very quickly write 2,000 - 3,000 words in a single day that has some redeeming quality to it. 

However, the rhythm doesn't always work that way. And, of course, it can't. Harvest is a season. It might happen multiple times yearly (if we’re strategic), but it's not every day. 

Some days are strictly for sowing. These are the seeds of ideas that one day will become published words. Seeding and harvesting are both critical. However, harvesting comes with more innate glory. 

It's easy to write 2,000 words I'm proud of and take for granted all the sowing, watering, fertilizing, and weeding it took to get there. 

All thought together, it's incredible the work that is required to get those 2,000 words written. 

Nonetheless, harvesting and enjoying the fruits after that is so rewarding I don't think much about it. And next season, back again, I go sowing seeds of future words to come. 

Let’s break each of these down further. 

1. Sowing — Ideas 

I get ideas from all different places. It will sometimes surprise me where they come from. Books, of course, but articles too, social media feeds, interviews for my podcast, meditation, watching T.V., talking with Annie, traveling somewhere new, conversations with friends, something my son does, replies from you all to this newsletter, etc. 

Basically, LIFE. 

The key to sowing is to get that seed into the ground. We want to make sure it’s making good contact with the soil. 

While not every seed might produce a bountiful harvest, there’s no chance of harvest if it never reaches the soil. 

And so, I must put that seed into the ground. 

For me, that’s writing a note in my journal and starting an article even if I don’t know what I’m really saying (see: next step “Care”). For me, anyway, the process begins when I have an idea and consciously decide to write it down. 

I can’t talk about it or take audio notes. I’ll lose that seed. I’m not an auditory or verbal processor. I’m visual. I need to give some physical quality to the ideas in my head for anything to germinate.  

There’s an incredible thing that happens when I try to go from the thought (the mental) to the paper, Google Doc, note app, etc. (the physical). 

While it’s nowhere near “finished,” the idea becomes, for the first time, real. And sometimes, it looks vastly different than I had expected it to. There’s always resistance to doing this. There’s always resistance to actually getting that seed (idea) into the ground. I don’t know why! I never end up regretting it. 

There’s never a guarantee that what gets written will become a published something. Most of it doesn’t. But once a seed is in the ground, it’s time to take care of it. 

2. Care — Working It, Shaping It, Waiting

When seedlings first emerge from the soil, seemingly like magic, I can’t help but get giddy and start fantasizing about the bountiful harvest to come. But now comes the work. 

Tons of seeds, or ideas, have been planted at this point. The daily rhythm of making thoughts physical, soon enough, leads to many seeds sown that are brimming with potential—just waiting for conditions to be right to germinate and reveal a new seedling. 

It would be silly to plant just one seed, right? One tomato seed, one carrot seed, one okra seed. That’s not how that’s done, of course. How incredibly inefficient?!? 

Provided you’re planting everything in a small area, it’s not that much harder to take care of many plants than it is to take care of one plant. 

In fact, if we’re wise to find suitable companion plantings, planting diverse, complimentary plants together might make everything else (weeding, pest control, etc.) far more manageable. 

And so likewise, in my process of generating and cultivating ideas, I focus on diversity and quantity. I think that’s why, in my library, you’ll see everything from philosophy and pop psychology to business and economics to books on Texas native plants. 

There is some sense that I can't take care of every seed. However, in nature, a seed can continue to exist for a long time in the ground before it germinates. It will finally germinate when the conditions are right. So, some will wait in the ground for some time. Others, sadly, might wait in the ground for eternity. 

However, there are seeds in which I take a primary interest. Those are the seeds I'm watering daily, mulching around, weeding if necessary, trying to see if they'll sprout and bear. This work isn't always pretty. The amount of times that I have to stop with a new article, podcast, newsletter, etc., and ask myself, “What am I even trying to say?” is endless, really. 

This is what my friend Jay Acunzo calls the “slog.” What a perfect fit word for this piece to the creative process. 

These are the earliest days in any would-be-finished work. This might be where 1000 words get written, read aloud, and then deleted because it seems like nothing was said at all. 

Like a new seedling that has just sprouted, many of these ideas are fragile. They need close care, enough sunshine but not too much, watered attentively but not to excess, and any early competition from weeds or additional seedlings should be promptly removed or thinned so that their growth won’t be stunted and neither the future harvest. 

It’s a slog. Some seedlings won’t make it for one reason or many. But some, because I’ve already sown in great quantity and diversity, do! 

The care continues until one day, I’m ready to harvest. 

3. Harvesting — Writing & Editing

Many seedlings will turn into full, food-producing plants. But that’s not always at the same time. When you harvest your asparagus, it will differ from when you harvest your summer squash. 

But when anything is ready to harvest, you have to harvest, period. It’s a precious window that we must identify and seize. We don’t want under-ripe or over-ripe; we want perfect. 

All coffee cherries on the same 3-5 acre farm won’t be ready to harvest at the same time! But when they are, you mustn’t miss that window. 

With my work, I need to pay close attention to momentum. 

What idea, now since cared for, is ready to turn into a published work? For me, this has been about training my intuition. 

Like an experienced gardener who knows when their tomatoes are perfectly ripe and ready to pick, after many repetitions, I’ve developed a sense for when an idea is ready to be turned into something I can share publicly. 

I have a vision for the article, podcast, video, etc. in my head. 

And with that vision in mind, I aim to bring it into reality as fast as possible. The goal at this point isn’t first quality; it’s done. The thought of quality comes later. 

This varies in difficulty because not all projects have the same scope. This newsletter, for example, is different than the book I’m working on. And so, some can be approached like a sprint, others like a marathon. Just like a new pecan tree that could live 100 years might be cared for differently than a fast-growing annual bean bush, so too are some creative projects needing to be cared for and harvested with a varying lens on the timetable.  

The focus: steady and persistent action to capitalize on momentum and bring that vision to life. 

As Rick Rubin, legendary music producer, explains in his recently published book, The Creative Act, the goal in the craft phase is to get to some point of completion. Ride the momentum. Coming back to a project half-finished can be very difficult and overwhelming. If it’s a longer project, it’s essential to break things into pieces and focus on those parts. 

For me, if I’ve started writing an article and see the end of it, my goal is to get my draft done. If I’m at this stage, this means I have momentum. I have the research, I have the sense of structure, and I have confidence in the thesis. I must capitalize on that and get to some version of “done.” 

It’s time to harvest, and harvest quickly! 

At this point, some things might, in fact, be “done.” And they are ready to get shipped. However, for some different types of plants, we might have additional harvests. 

This, for me, is like editing. Get something to some semblance of done. When the time is right, come back to harvest again. Edit, polish, and finish. 

4. Enjoy the Fruits

The goal in all my creative work is to make and share something I’m proud of. This doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, there are pieces of what I’ve done that I liked, others I don’t. 

Nonetheless, the creating feels good—even if I thought something could’ve been a little better than it turned out.  

There’s something incredibly satisfying about eating something you grew yourself. It's even better if you (and others) actually like how it tastes. 🤪

But as gardening is like writing, harvests come to pass, and so do the many articles, books, or whatever else. 

All you can do is learn from what went well and what didn’t, what you liked and what you disliked, and then sow again.