He opened his idea list to choose this week's video. Twenty-one ideas, some written eight months ago, some a single line whose meaning he no longer remembers. He read the list top to bottom twice, closed it, and filmed the idea that had occurred to him in the car the day before.
That is what happens every time. The list grows and never shrinks, and the best thing on it never gets filmed, because reading twenty lines with no criterion always ends with whatever is nearest to hand rather than whatever is best.
The problem is not that he needs more ideas. He has twenty-one. The problem is that he has no method for turning a list into an order.
Why the three usual methods fail
By enthusiasm. You pick whatever you like most today. The trouble is that enthusiasm lies: the idea that is fun in your head is not the idea that is ready, and the one you love may need travel, three people and a month.
By recency. You pick the last thing you wrote. Which means the whole list withers while you circle the newest line. This is exactly how an idea stock becomes a graveyard, as we covered in Your Idea Stock: Why It Becomes a Graveyard.
By what you expect to spread. You pick whatever you think will get the most views. That is a guess, guessing is weak in this field, and it pushes you into repeating what worked for somebody else.
Four criteria, three points each
Give every idea a score from 1 to 3 on four criteria. The total is out of 12:
1. Readiness. Can you start this week with what you have now?
- 3: material, location and gear are ready.
- 2: one thing missing that you can get in days.
- 1: needs travel, a permit, or a person who has not agreed yet.
2. Cost in hours. How many hours of research, filming and editing?
- 3: under ten hours.
- 2: ten to twenty-five.
- 1: more than that.
3. Service to the person you are talking to. Does this idea remove an obstacle for the person you make videos for?
- 3: removes an obstacle he actually asks about.
- 2: useful but not aimed at a specific obstacle.
- 1: fun for you and not about him.
4. Staying power. Will it be watched in six months?
- 3: a permanent question unattached to any event.
- 2: holds for a year.
- 1: tied to a wave that ends in a fortnight.
Do not labour over the scores. Thirty seconds per idea is enough, and the difference between a 2 and a 3 on one criterion does not flip the result.
A decision table in ten minutes
| The idea | Readiness | Cost | Service | Staying | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Explaining a home audio setup | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 12 |
| An interview with a craftsman in another city | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 7 |
| A response to this week's argument | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
| A comparison of three cameras | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 9 |
The order emerges on its own. And the idea scoring seven is not a bad idea, it is an idea that is not next: it needs preparation, and its place is next month's plan rather than this week.
What a low total is telling you
Look at which criterion the idea fell on, because the remedy differs:
- It fell on readiness. This is an idea to prepare, not to reject. Write the missing piece underneath it and turn it into a small task: a message to send, a permission to request.
- It fell on cost. Ask whether there is a smaller version inside it. Many large ideas contain an eight-hour idea.
- It fell on service. Check whether the idea really is for the person you are talking to. If it is not, it belongs on a different list.
- It fell on staying power. A wave idea gets filmed now or not at all. The decision there is about timing, not quality.
- It fell on two or more. This one is a candidate for deletion, and the rules for that are in When to Delete an Idea From Your Backlog.
Two rules that override the order
The ranking is a tool, not a ruler. There are two cases where you go past it:
The temporary opportunity. Someone is travelling next week, or an event happens once a year. These move up even on a lower total, because the price of missing them is a whole year.
The big idea you always postpone. If you find one particular idea sinking to the bottom every time because of its cost, that is a sign it will never be filmed this way. The remedy is to split it into three stages and put the first stage in the plan, or to delete it honestly.
Where this ranking lives
You do not need a new tool. One column called "total", in the same place you already keep your ideas, is enough.
And rank once a fortnight, not every day. The ranking gives you three or four ready ideas at the top, and that is enough to fill the plan. Connecting all of this to the calendar is in A publishing calendar that holds.
The ranking also reveals something else useful: that ideas close together in total and in subject would make a series, which is what we covered in From scattered ideas to a series.
And the idea at the top
Before you spend a week on it, it deserves a cheap test, and we set out four of those in How do you test an idea before spending a week on it?. The ranking tells you where to start; the test tells you whether to continue.
The most useful thing all this gives you is not merely the next idea. It is that the list stops exhausting you. Twenty-one unranked ideas are a weight; twenty-one ranked ideas are a working tool.