Ep 36. Quick (but deep) content creation for introverts

Let’s talk about something I know many of you struggle with (and if I’m honest, it’s something I still catch myself doing too) because as introverts we’re natural deep thinkers.

We see all the layers, all the nuances, all the angles, which is brilliant when you’re working with clients or creating a meaty piece of content.

But when it comes to your day-to-day content (social media I’m looking at you), it means you can easily spend two hours writing a single LinkedIn caption, and I don’t think you need to do that all the time. Sometimes the quick and dirty approach is okay.

I know what it’s like. You sit down thinking, right, I’m just quickly gonna share this thought.

20 minutes later, you’re still there. Two hours later, you’ve written it a million times and added three more paragraphs and second guessed yourself, and after all that, the post still doesn’t feel done enough to publish, so then it stays in your drafts. We want to get them out of there.

I know we naturally want to go seven layers deep on everything to make sure we haven’t missed anything important (because that’s just how our brains work) but it doesn’t mean that every piece of content needs to take that long.

So, today I wanna talk about how we can create valuable content without spending hours on every single post, because sometimes the quick thoughts, those epiphanies you have in your shower, um, those one-liners are just as impactful, if not more than the ones you’ve spent hours on.

If you’re new here. Hello, welcome to Quiet Confidence with myself, Anita Popat. It’s the podcast for introverts who want to market their thing without changing who you are.

So let’s start with why this happens, because I guarantee it’s not just you being a perfectionist or overthinking, although yeah, that is a part of it.

As deep thinkers, we genuinely see more layers to everything.

So for example, when someone mentions their marketing strategy to me, my brain straight away goes to, OK, but that depends on your audience, your offer, your energy levels, where you are in your business, what platforms are you on? what kind of personality have you got? what’s your capacity for holding all of this?

So you see all of it, right?

Which is amazing when you’re working with someone one-to-one, but when you’re trying to write a social media post, it can stop you from posting because how do you condense all of that nuance into a caption without it feeling oversimplified or like you’re missing something important?

So you try to include everything, every caveat, every, but-what-about-this-scenario, and what you end up doing is either a massive essay that no one’s gonna read because they’re scrolling on their lunch break.

Or you’ve edited it so many times trying to make it complete, that you’ve lost all of your personality in it.

What I want you to know is that it’s OK. Your audience doesn’t need a dissertation. They just need a light bulb moment.

All they need is that one thought that shifts something for them.

It could be a permission slip, it could be an, Oh my God, I’ve never thought about it that way before.

And the thing is, sometimes these quick off the cuff pieces of content can land harder than your post you spent ages on.

It’s probably because of the energy they convey, they feel more spontaneous, more real, more like something you’d actually say in conversation.

I mean, when I started, I can’t tell you how many hours I wasted agonising over every post to make sure that every word was perfect, published it and got crickets.

And then I’ll post something I wrote in literally five minutes while having a morning cuppa, and suddenly everyone’s in my DM’s going, oh my God, yes, that’s exactly what I wanna hear.

Yeah, it’s annoying, but it’s also freeing once you realise it, because it means you don’t have to spend hours on everything for it to matter or make a difference to your audience.

Also don’t forget “value” is subjective. What’s really valuable to one person might be completely irrelevant to someone else…and that’s not a bad thing. It just means you need to be crystal clear on who you’re talking to.

For example, someone scrolling at 9:00am might be looking for tactical advice, whereas someone scrolling at 11:00pm at night might need emotional support or want to feel less alone.

The same person might need different things on different days depending on what they’re dealing with.

So when you’re sitting there thinking, hmm, is this valuable enough, valuable enough for who? and in what context? at what point in their journey?

I think we’ve bought into this idea that valuable content has to be universally helpful. Like it needs to apply to everyone solve a big problem or teach something really big, but that’s just not true.

Sometimes the most valuable thing is a reminder someone already knows, but they forgot. Sometimes it’s permission to do something differently, or sometimes it’s just a simple, hey, you’re not the only one feeling this way.

None of these are groundbreaking insights, but to the person who needed to hear it in that moment, it’s everything.

Someone sent me a DM once about a post I’d written that literally said, you can take Mondays off calls if you want to. There was no strategy, no framework, just a simple statement as to how I plan my week.

She said that shifted everything for her because she’d been running herself into the ground thinking she had to be available every day, but that one sentence gave her permission to structure her week differently.

To some people reading that post, it probably seemed obvious or not particularly useful, but to her in that moment, it was exactly what she needed.

And that’s the thing about value. You can’t predict what’s going to land for someone, and we’re not God, right?

You can’t control who needs to hear what and when. All you can do is share what feels true for you and trust that the right people will find it at the right time.

That means you can stop trying to make every piece of content valuable to everyone.

Just make it valuable to someone, even if that’s someone is just one person.

Because one person feeling seen, feeling understood, and less alone matters just as much as teaching a hundred people a new framework.

Right. So if we’re not spending two hours on every post, how do we actually create the content? Let me tell you.

So what works for me and what I tell my clients to do is to capture, not create.

What I mean by that is that your best content ideas probably aren’t gonna come when you’re sitting at your desk staring at a blank screen trying to think of something to say.

They’re gonna come to you when you’re in the shower, on a walk mid-conversation with a client, making dinner, driving home from a networking event.

You know, the places where you’re not gonna have a notepad to hand. These are the moments when you think, oh, that’s interesting, or I should share that, or I wish someone had told me this years ago.

So instead of trying to force content creation, just capture the thoughts when they happen.

I’m updating my notes app on my phone all the time, but if it’s easier for you, you can send yourself voice notes. If I’m on client calls, I tend to have a notepad on my desk so I can just scribble things down before I don’t forget.

When you’ve captured it, you’re basically creating a bank of content ideas that you can go back to when you’re ready, or you can post in the moment if you want to, and then that’s your content done.

You don’t need to try and make it more substantial. Just share it and move on with your day.

I promise you that the people who need to hear it will get it, and the people who don’t will just scroll past, which is fine because not everything is for everyone.

By capturing content ideas during the week as you’re doing stuff, rather than forcing yourself to do it in front of a blank piece of paper, you take so much pressure off yourself and content creation stops being this big, scary thing that you’ve gotta carve out hours for. It starts being this natural extension of your thinking that happens throughout your day.

That sounds so much nicer, doesn’t it?

And already sounds less overwhelming right?

Now, I wanna be really clear. I’m not saying you should never create longer, more in-depth content. Obviously there’s a place for that.

So your podcast episodes, your emails, your blogs, they’re the places you can really dive into a topic, and they’re brilliant for building that deeper connection and showcasing your expertise., but for this episode, I just wanted to share that not everything needs to be that.

And I think that’s where a lot of us get stuck. We think every piece of content needs to be educational or profound or teach someone something they can implement, but that’s just not true.

Sometimes it’s just a quick reminder like, hey, remember this thing you already know, but probably forgot today.

Sometimes it’s a simple observation, like, I noticed this thing happening and thought it was interesting.

Sometimes it’s a tiny permission slip, like, you’re allowed to do this differently.

And those don’t need to be long. They’re just thoughts, reminders, and little moments of connection.

Honestly, you might not think it, but these quick pieces of content often do more heavy lifting than you think because they’re still keeping you visible. They’re still reminding people that you exist and you’re creating these little touch points throughout someone’s week where they see your name, resonate with something you said and think, yeah, I like it.

And when they’re ready for the deeper stuff, when they want to binge your podcast or read your guide or work with you, they already trust you because you’ve been showing up consistently with these little aha moments.

So think about your content like having different tools in your toolkit, you’ve got your deeper pieces that really showcase your thinking. These are your power tools.

Then you’ve got your quick pieces that keep you visible and create connection without draining you. Those are your everyday essentials.

You don’t need to choose one or the other. You probably should do both.

What I want you to take away from here is to stop putting pressure on yourself for every single post to be deep, comprehensive, full of, I need them to know everything energy. Save that energy for when you’re creating your long form stuff.

And don’t worry, short doesn’t mean that your content’s gonna feel shallow, especially not for you. Because as a deep thinker, you literally can’t help but bring nuance to everything you do. I know it’s just how your brain works.

Even when you share a quick observation, someone else might have already written it as surface level advice, but you’ve probably brought the context and considered that human element and thought about why it matters, and that’s depth, even if the post itself was only three sentences.

So don’t worry that your quick content isn’t good enough or long enough.

The depth you bring to your work isn’t about word counts. It’s about how you think, how you see the world, and what you notice that other people miss.

That will come through whether you’re writing 50 words or 500 words.

To be honest, shorter content forces you to get to the heart of what you’re really trying to say, because when you’ve got a few sentences, you can’t waffle or cover every angle. You have to commit to the one thing you actually want to say and that often makes a piece of content more powerful, not less.

Trust that your natural way of thinking will come through regardless of how long your piece of content is, and the people who resonate with how you think will get it even from the short stuff.

Let’s get practical. How can we get you creating this quick content?

First thing I’m gonna say is just lower the bar.

Now I’m not talking about your long form stuff that obviously needs thought and deep work, but for social media posts, seriously, if you’re currently spending two hours on every post and that’s making you not post at all, we wanna learn how to create quicker content so that you can post more than you currently are with less stress.

Maybe what that looks like for you is three quick posts a week that will take you 10 minutes each, rather than one post a week that takes you three hours and leaves you exhausted.

The second thing is to batch the capturing, but not create at the same time.

Everything is content. So make it a habit of capturing all of your tiny thoughts and moments and things into a content bank, but don’t do the creating at the same time.

What I mean by that is if you’ve got a running list of all of the ideas, if you know, let’s say Friday mornings, are your high energy day, when your thoughts are flowing, you can spend the morning tidying up those thoughts, and then batch creating and writing content for the following week.

Or thirdly, if you try batch creating and it doesn’t work for you, that’s fine. Take a moment from your content bank, set a timer for 10 minutes. Write a quick and dirty version of the caption and post it.

I know that probably feels too easy if you spend hours agonizing over content. But honestly, some of my best performing content has been stuff that I’ve voice noted to myself and then literally just copied and pasted it with really little editing. And I’m guessing it worked because it sounded like me talking, not me trying to write “content”.

So if you’ve captured a thought and it makes sense, just post it. Don’t spend 45 minutes trying to make it better. It’s probably good enough for socials.

Also remember why you’re doing this. You’re not posting for the algorithm or trying to go viral. You’re showing up for your audience who want that one thought that shifts something for them.

These people aren’t gonna care if you spent five minutes or five hours on your content. They just care that you said something that they need to hear.

So let’s take that pressure off. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be comprehensive. It just has to be true and helpful, and most importantly very you.

The more you can let yourself create quick content without the pressure, the more consistently you’ll show up, which means more people will actually see what you’ve got to say, which is kind of the whole point, right?

If you’re sitting there thinking, OK, yeah, I wanna do this, but I’ve been following everyone else’s advice for so long that I don’t even know what my voice sounds like anymore. Don’t worry, I’ve got something for you.

I’ve created a free marketing journal called Own Your Voice, and it’s specifically for introverted business owners who’ve lost themselves following everyone else’s strategy.

It’s got prompts to help you come back to the voice that you’ve already got, but lost somewhere along the way trying to sound like everyone else. You can get it here.

And if you’d like to work together one-to-one, if you want more support in not just finding your voice, but actually creating a sustainable marketing rhythm that will help you show up consistently and connect with your dream clients. that’s what we do inside Silent Storm.

Until then, let’s try some quick content and see what happens. I think you’ll be surprised.

Enjoy creating and keep building your quiet confidence so you can make that loud impact in the world. Speak soon.