The 80/20 of quality content

You can drastically improve the quality of your content by focusing on the 80/20 of writing.

The outline.

Remember those colouring books we used to play with as kids?

You could choose any colour, any shade, any combination; so long as it stayed within the boundaries of the outline it was a work of art.

Writing is very similar.

Without an outline to organize your message, art (your ideas) can come off as loose, messy, and hard to follow.

Nail the outline and the rest flows naturally.

A good outline can make or break when it comes to people reading or scrolling past – which can make it quite a daunting task.

Even more so if you’re working on bigger projects like an e-book, digital course, or consulting offer.

Everyone goes about mapping their “skeleton” differently, here are a few things I've learned through working on my own content/product.

It all starts with a deep understanding of the “content unit.”

Think of them as the individual bricks that make up an entire building.

Without the integrity of the many micro-units, the whole thing crumbles.

Copywriters understand the principles of a “content unit” as something akin to the P-A-S framework, or Pain – Amplify – Solution.

It actually goes so much deeper than that as the psychology behind these units are embedded within the 3-act story structure, & littered all over our favourite movies such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etc.

A picture shows a thousand words so here’s an example of what a micro-unit looks like within the macro-structure:

(mind you this is for bigger projects such as blogs, e-books, or digital products - but the principles remain the same)

To help your eyes adjust:

1. Observe the macro-structure
2. Observe the micro-units embedded within each section.

I’ve only displayed “the big problem” for the sake of clarity.

To prevent my overthinking + perfectionist mindset, I always start with a Bulletpoint outline.

I lay out the entire story in bullet points to capture the essence, as well as the “logic” of the story.

This is also the best time to poke holes in your arguments while it’s still young, rather than building the entire thing only to find some serious gaps in your solution.

(too many times Mat, too many times…)

I’ve never considered myself to be a creative thinker, and my strengths definitely lean more towards rationality and logic.

This is how I’ve come to learn to double down on the structure first, 

Then layer the colorful stories/analogies second.

This ensures the two worlds don’t mix and contradict one another.

After I’m satisfied with the bones of the skeleton, I then move on to developing the meat.

This is the part where I do intentional research to fill in the gaps and flesh out the entire body.

A quick tip is you can position your bullet points into questions to help with the research phase.

Yes, it can take longer, but this is the cost of creating depth and leaving a lasting impact.

Always aim for bad drafts to take the pressure off and set realistic expectations.

After this phase, I’m left with a pretty bulked-up collection of words that require a dietary cut.

The cutting phase is my cute way of saying it’s time to edit and trim the fat and is also how you can create banger short-form posts during the process.

As with everything practice makes perfect (or close to it).

That’s it for this week's show & tell.

Anything and everything I preach will be fleshed out in obsessive detail in future works, so stay tuned for that.

Also lately I’ve had to reorganize a few of my priorities which is why I haven’t been sending as many newsletters as I’d like. Once I get a few major components squared away, you’ll see an uptick 🙂 

Thank you so much for reading and I’ll see you soon.

God bless,

— Mat