Why Having Too Many Ideas Is Worse Than Having None At All

The 6-Week System to Turn Scattered Genius Into Consistent Content

Jun 12, 2025

Welcome to this week’s edition of Mitten Dad Minute
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You know that feeling when you’re scrolling through your voice memos and find 47 recordings that start with “Oh my word, this is brilliant…” followed by you explaining some earth-shattering insight while your toddler screams in the background?

Yeah. Me too.

Right now, open your voice memos and count them. How about your Notes Inbox?

I’ll wait.

If that number made you wince a little, you’re in the right place.

Here’s the thing nobody talks about: having too many ideas is actually worse than having none at all.

I know that sounds backwards.

But think about it. When you have zero ideas, you know exactly what your problem is. You need inspiration. You go for a walk, read some articles, maybe reorganize your spice rack until something hits you.

But when you’re drowning in ideas?

When you have 23 half-finished drafts, 73 screenshots of “content inspiration,” and a Notes app that looks like it was attacked by a caffeinated squirrel?

That’s when the real torture begins.

The shift from idea scarcity to idea abundance should feel like winning the lottery.

Instead, it feels like becoming a prison warden. Every brilliant thought you’ve captured becomes another inmate you have to feed, house, and somehow figure out what to do with.

Research shows the average content creator generates 10x more ideas than they’ll ever actually use.

We’re digital hoarders, collecting shiny thoughts like they’re going out of style, then wondering why we feel creatively constipated despite being idea-rich.

The problem isn’t that you lack creativity. It’s that you’ve turned your ideas into evidence of your own inadequacy.

Every voice memo becomes proof that you’re “not following through.”

Every saved article whispers that you’re “all consumption, no creation.”

Every brilliant shower thought that dies in your drafts folder is another small failure.

But what if I told you the solution isn’t having fewer ideas?

What if the secret is actually building a system that transforms your scattered genius into a content assembly line?

By the end of this post, you’ll understand why your ideas have been working against you instead of for you.

And more importantly, you’ll have a 6-week blueprint to turn your creative chaos into a content factory that actually produces results—even if you can only work in 15-minute sprints between diaper changes and conference calls.

You might even defeat Shiny Outcome Syndrome in the process.

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Why Your Ideas Become Wardens (Not Workers)

Imagine this: Let’s take Sarah, a working mom who recorded 73 voice memos over six months.

Seventy-three!

Everything from parenting hacks to business insights to philosophical observations about why grocery stores put the milk in the back (spoiler: it’s not an accident, people).

But every time she sat down to turn one into content, she’d think: “This isn’t comprehensive enough. I need to add three more angles. Oh, and research. Definitely need research. Plus, what if someone has already said this?”

The result? Zero published pieces.

Despite having enough raw material to fuel a content calendar for the next two years.

This is exactly what most “productivity gurus” won’t tell you: the reason your ideas feel like a burden instead of a blessing has nothing to do with discipline. It has everything to do with how you’re treating them.

Sarah’s breakthrough came when she realized something crucial: ideas aren’t meant to be perfect. They’re meant to be processed.

Most of us approach ideas like they’re rare butterflies. We catch them, pin them to a board, and then… stare at them.

Forever.

We treat each bright idea like it needs to become the next War and Peace, when really, most ideas are just meant to be a Tuesday morning Instagram post.

The perfectionism trap runs especially deep here.

We convince ourselves that brilliant idea from three months ago—you know, the one about productivity systems for overwhelmed parents—needs to be a complete, polished, revolutionary piece of content.

So we never start. Because what if it’s not revolutionary?

What if it’s just… helpful? Oh, the horror of publishing something merely helpful. Such a novel concept.

Here’s the paradigm shift that changes everything:

Think about Henry Ford. He didn’t look at a pile of steel and rubber and think, “Each piece needs to be handcrafted into a unique automotive masterpiece.”

He thought, “How can I systematically transform raw materials into something useful as efficiently as possible?”

Your ideas are steel and rubber. Your content is cars. You need a factory, not a craft workshop.

This mirrors what productivity expert Tiago Forte calls the “PARA Method” in Building a Second Brain—organizing information by actionability rather than topic.

The key insight? Your brain isn’t meant to be a filing cabinet; it’s meant to be a thinking machine.

Instead of asking “Is this idea good enough to publish?” you start asking “How can I process this idea into content quickly?”

Instead of hoarding ideas until they’re “ready,” you start feeding them through a system that cranks out consistent, valuable content.

Here’s your aha moment: ideas sitting in your voice memos aren’t assets.

They’re inventory. And inventory that doesn’t move is just stuff taking up space in your warehouse.

Your brain isn’t meant to be a storage unit. It’s meant to be a production facility.

Time to start treating it like one.

Building Your Content Assembly Line (15 Minutes At A Time)

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing,” Walt Disney said. (Though Disney probably never had a toddler “help” him animate Mickey Mouse, so take that wisdom with a grain of fairy dust.)

But here’s what Disney understood that most of us miss: production systems beat inspiration every single time.

You don’t need longer focus sessions. You don’t need perfect conditions. You need a process that works in the cracks of your chaotic life.

The biggest mistake I see creators make is trying to go from idea to published piece in one marathon session.

That’s like trying to build a car by starting with steel ore and ending up driving to work the same day.

It’s not how manufacturing works, and it’s not how sustainable content creation works either.

The solution is what I call the Content Factory Method: breaking creation into specific, manageable stages that build on each other.

Each stage takes 15 minutes or less. Each stage produces something concrete. And by the end, you’ve got finished content without ever needing a four-hour block of “deep work.”

Why 6 weeks? Because that’s how long it takes to rewire your brain from “perfectionist creator” to “systematic producer.”

Why 15 minutes? Because that’s the longest block most of us can realistically protect in our actual lives.

Here’s your transformation timeline:

Week 1-2: Install The Capture System

Target outcome: 15+ categorized ideas ready for processing

Quick self-assessment: How many voice memos do you currently have? If it’s more than 10, you need this system.

The “Good Enough Rule” for Idea Collection

Stop trying to capture ideas perfectly. I see people spending 10 minutes crafting the perfect voice memo, complete with context, background, and a three-point outline.

By the time they’re done “capturing” the idea, they could have turned it into content.

Your new rule: 30 seconds maximum per capture. Brain dump, not brain organize.

Set up three buckets:

Develop: Ideas with legs (could become full pieces)
Combine: Fragments that need friends (partial thoughts)
Compost: Dead ends (but you never know)

I use Kortex from

DAN KOE

’s team for this entire capture and processing pipeline.

Their capture feature lets you quickly dump ideas across devices, then organize them later—exactly what the Content Factory Method requires.

No more scattered notes across seventeen different apps.

The magic happens when you stop judging ideas at the capture stage. Your inner editor isn’t invited to this part of the process.

Just collect the raw materials.

Common capture mistakes to avoid:

Trying to capture ideas perfectly
Mixing capture with editing
Treating all ideas as equal priority
Waiting for “complete” thoughts

Week 3-4: Build The Processing Pipeline

Target outcome: 10 fully expanded idea frameworks ready for content creation

The “Five Ws + So What?” expansion method

This is where most people get stuck. They look at a captured idea and think, “Now what?” The answer is systematic expansion using journalism’s best friend: who, what, when, where, why, and so what?

Take any idea and spend 15 minutes answering:

Who is this for? (Be specific—“overwhelmed parents” not “people”)
What problem does this solve? (Real problem, not make-believe)
When do they face this problem? (Context matters)
Where are they when this matters? (Physical/mental location)
Why haven’t they solved it yet? (The real barrier)
So what? (Why should they care right now?)

Then comes the connection mapping—your secret weapon against scattered thinking.

Spend 10 minutes drawing lines between ideas.

What connects to what? Which concepts reinforce each other? Where are the natural partnerships?

Most creators treat ideas like isolated islands. But your best content comes from building bridges between those islands.

Week 5-6: Activate The Production Line

Target outcome: 5 published pieces and a sustainable content rhythm

The Container Strategy

Here’s where it gets fun.

Every idea doesn’t need to become the same thing:

Some ideas are tweets.
Some are newsletters.
Some are Instagram carousels.
Some are LinkedIn posts.

Match the idea to the container—don’t force every thought into the same-sized box.

Quick audit: What’s the simplest container this idea could live in? Start there.

The Iteration Scheduling system

Stop trying to publish perfect content. Start publishing improvable content. Here’s your new workflow:

Draft → Ship → Improve

Not Draft → Perfect → Eventually Ship → Never

Schedule everything in advance. One of my favorites for this is Typefully. Set publication dates before content is “ready.”

This creates productive pressure instead of perfectionist paralysis.

You’ll be amazed how quickly you can finish something when the deadline is real and approaching.

Success metrics that matter:

You’ll know the system is working when:

You stop feeling guilty about your voice memos and start feeling excited about your content calendar
You can turn an idea into publishable content in under 30 minutes
You have a backlog of processed ideas instead of a graveyard of abandoned thoughts
Creating content feels like assembly, not archaeology

The beautiful thing about this system? It compounds.

Week 1 feels slow. Week 3 feels manageable. Week 6 feels like magic.

Because you’ve built a machine that turns scattered thoughts into consistent content, regardless of whether your three-year-old decided to “redecorate” the bathroom with toothpaste that morning.

The Future Belongs To Systems, Not Inspiration

Remember when calculators were “cheating” in math class?

Now they’re standard tools.

Your content factory isn’t cheating—it’s evolution.

The future belongs to creators who leverage systems, not those who rely purely on inspiration.

The creators winning in 2025 aren’t the ones with the most creativity—they’re the ones with the best systems.

Your choice: keep being a warden of brilliant but imprisoned ideas, or become the factory owner of a content empire.

Your ideas were never the problem. Your processing system was.

Time to fix that.

– Matt

Ready to stop being an idea hoarder and start being a content creator? Your first assignment: count your current voice memos, install Kortex for proper capture, and grab a copy of Building a Second Brain to master the methodology behind the madness.

Then hit reply and tell me your starting count.