There’s so much content produced these days that you can spend all of your free time passively consuming podcasts, blog posts, videos, and newsletters and still have plenty of other stuff to consume. It’s easy to be lazy and consume all the time, but in the long term I think it’s much more valuable to create content. You’ll probably end up a better thinker.

My goal recently has been to become a net creator instead of a net consumer of content. In other words, creating more content than I consume. I think if you want to create more content, you have to simultaneously create more and consume less. By consuming less, you give your mind some space to think and be active.

Here’s what has been working for me:

1. Don’t read the news, or limit yourself to a couple of low frequency sources.
2. Reduce the amount of noise in your feeds. For LinkedIn, I used the script in this post to unfollow all of my connections. Now I see 0 posts from anyone else, but I still have 2k+ followers who see my posts.
3. Get into a habit of creating something everyday. It doesn’t have to be published.
4. Lower the bar and rethink what is worth publishing.