Austin Kleon writes a book every few years, maintains a daily blog, creates art, raises kids, and somehow never seems frantic. Ali Abdaal publishes weekly YouTube videos, writes newsletters, runs a business, and still has time for hobbies. Tiago Forte teaches cohort-based courses, writes books, hosts a podcast, and maintains a thriving community.
What’s their secret? Better time management? Superhuman discipline? A team doing all the work behind the scenes?
I spent months studying prolific creators, and the answer surprised me: They barely think about what to create next.
Not because they’re uninspired, but because they’ve built systems that make creation inevitable. While everyone else stares at blank pages wondering what to write, they’re pulling from organized collections of ideas, research, and inspiration they’ve been cultivating for months.
The secret isn’t creating more. It’s organizing first so creation becomes easy.
This inverts everything we’re taught about productivity. We’re told to “just start writing” or “ship before you’re ready.” But the most productive creators do the opposite: they invest heavily in organizing their inputs, then creation becomes almost effortless.
Why Most Creators Struggle with Consistency#
Let’s start with the painful truth: most people who want to create consistently can’t.
They start blogs that die after three posts. They begin YouTube channels that go dormant. They commit to newsletters they stop sending. It’s not for lack of trying. They genuinely want to create. But the friction kills them.
The typical creator workflow looks like this:
- Sit down to create
- Stare at blank page
- Panic about what to make
- Scramble for inspiration
- Spend an hour researching
- Start creating with 20 minutes left
- Produce something mediocre
- Feel exhausted and discouraged
- Repeat (or quit)
The problem isn’t at step six. It’s step one. They’re trying to ideate and create simultaneously, which is like trying to mine ore and forge a sword at the same time. These are different cognitive modes that shouldn’t happen together.
Research on creative cognition shows that divergent thinking (generating ideas) and convergent thinking (executing on them) use different mental processes. When you try to do both at once, you do neither well.
Productive creators separate these modes completely. They have one system for collecting and organizing inputs (divergent), and a different time for creating outputs (convergent). When it’s time to create, they’re not starting from zero—they’re assembling from abundance.
What “Organize First” Actually Means#
Organizing first doesn’t mean building elaborate systems that never get used. It means having a frictionless way to capture and structure your creative inputs so they’re ready when you need them.
Here’s what this looks like in practice:
Capturing Everything That Sparks Ideas#
Every article you read, video you watch, conversation you have, or random thought you get is potential creative fuel. But only if you capture it.
Productive creators are obsessive capturers. They save:
- Articles that changed their thinking
- Examples of work they admire
- Questions their audience asks repeatedly
- Interesting statistics or research
- Quotes that resonate
- Tools they discover
- Conversations that spark ideas
- Their own scattered thoughts and observations
The key is making capture effortless. If saving something takes more than a few seconds, you won’t do it consistently. You’ll tell yourself you’ll remember, then forget within an hour.
This is why prolific creators use tools designed for speed. A browser extension that saves links in one click. A note-taking app with keyboard shortcuts. Voice memos while walking. Whatever removes friction between inspiration and capture.
Organizing by Theme, Not Timeline#
Here’s where most people go wrong: they capture things chronologically (notes dated by when they wrote them, bookmarks saved in order) but need to retrieve them thematically (all resources about a specific topic).
This mismatch creates the “I know I saved something about this somewhere” problem. You have the information, but it’s effectively lost because finding it is harder than just Googling again.
Productive creators organize their inputs by theme from the start:
- All resources about email marketing in one collection
- Everything related to storytelling in another
- Design inspiration clustered separately from design tutorials
- Research for the book project separate from research for blog posts
The organization reflects how they’ll actually use the material. When it’s time to write about email marketing, they have a pre-curated collection of examples, research, and ideas waiting.
Adding Context in the Moment#
Raw captures aren’t enough. You need to know why you saved something.
When you bookmark an article about productivity without context, future-you has no idea what past-you found valuable. You have to re-read the entire piece to rediscover the insight. That’s wasted time.
Productive creators add minimal context immediately:
- “Example of great onboarding email sequence—note the personalization”
- “Research showing most people don’t finish what they start—potential blog angle”
- “This video’s pacing is perfect—study the editing rhythm”
Just one sentence. But that sentence transforms a link from “something I saved” to “something I can actually use.”
Reviewing and Connecting Regularly#
Organization isn’t a one-time activity. It’s ongoing cultivation.
The most productive creators have a review practice. Maybe it’s Sunday mornings with coffee. Maybe it’s 15 minutes every evening. But regularly, they:
- Review what they captured this week
- Move things from inbox to proper collections
- Notice patterns in what they’re collecting
- Connect related ideas across different themes
- Prune things that no longer resonate
This review time is when the magic happens. You see that three articles you saved separately are actually exploring the same underlying pattern. You realize you’ve accumulated enough material on a topic to create something substantial. You discover unexpected connections that become original ideas.
The review isn’t busywork. It’s thinking time disguised as organization.
How Organized Inputs Transform Creation#
When you’ve spent months organizing your inputs, something remarkable happens: creation stops feeling like starting from scratch.
Instead of “what should I write about today?” you browse your organized collections and see:
- Fifteen resources about remote work culture
- Eight examples of great product launch sequences
- A collection of questions your audience keeps asking
- Patterns you’ve noticed across different domains
- Quotes that sparked ideas you wanted to explore
You’re not ideating in real-time. You’re choosing from pre-curated options.
This transforms creation from a heroic solo act into a assembly process:
For a blog post: Pull from your “writing craft” collection, your “current interests” folder, and your “audience questions” list. You have examples, research, and a clear angle before you write a word.
For a video: Browse your “video inspiration” stash, your “topics I want to cover” notes, and your “great examples to reference” collection. The script practically writes itself.
For a newsletter: Your “interesting links” collection has been growing all month. You just choose the best ones, add your perspective, and send. No scrambling for content.
For social media: Your “ideas worth sharing” folder is full of thoughts you captured over weeks. Turn them into threads, posts, or graphics. You’re publishing stored thinking, not manufacturing thoughts on demand.
The creation itself becomes faster, better, and less stressful because you’re working from abundance rather than scarcity.
Why This Approach Feels Counterintuitive#
Most productivity advice says “just start” or “done is better than perfect.” This advice sounds like the opposite: organize before creating? Isn’t that just elaborate procrastination?
No. Here’s why:
“Just start” advice assumes the problem is perfectionism. For many creators, perfectionism isn’t the issue—lack of inputs is. You can’t write a compelling article about productivity if you haven’t been collecting examples, research, and insights. Starting won’t help. You need material to work with.
Organization and creation are different energy states. Organization is low-stakes browsing, collecting, and arranging. You can do it while tired, distracted, or unmotivated. Creation requires focus and energy. By frontloading the easy work (organizing), you reserve your best energy for the hard work (creating).
Organized inputs create motivation. When you sit down to create and see abundant, well-organized material waiting for you, you actually want to create. The blank page is intimidating. A collection of fascinating resources you’re excited to synthesize? That’s inviting.
It prevents creative debt. Creating from scratch every time means constantly rebuilding context. Every article is a research project. Every video is starting fresh. But when you’re organizing continuously, you’re building creative capital that compounds. Each capture makes future creation easier.
Building Your Organized Creation System#
If you want to create more consistently and with less stress, here’s how to build an organize-first system:
Step 1: Choose Your Capture Tools#
You need two things:
A fast way to capture links and external resources. This is where most people falter. Browser bookmarks are too limited. Note-taking apps are too slow. You need something purpose-built for link capture.
Stashed.in solves exactly this problem. The browser extension lets you save any page in one click—add a quick note, tag it, and it’s organized instantly. No breaking flow, no complex workflows, just frictionless capture. Your research, examples, and inspiration get saved the moment you find them.
A quick way to capture your own thoughts. When ideas strike between formal work sessions, you need somewhere to dump them. Apple Notes, Google Keep, voice memos—whatever is already on your device. Just make sure you can capture in under 30 seconds.
Step 2: Create Theme-Based Collections#
Don’t wait until you have hundreds of items to organize. Start with structure:
Identify 3-5 topics you’re actively creating about or want to create about. Maybe it’s:
- Personal finance education
- Design systems
- Remote work practices
- Whatever you’re interested in
Create a collection or folder for each. These are your creative gardens. Every resource you find gets planted in the appropriate garden immediately.
As you collect more, subthemes will emerge naturally. Your “design systems” collection might split into “component libraries” and “design tokens.” Let this happen organically.
Step 3: Capture With Context#
Make this your rule: never save a link without a one-sentence note about why.
This feels like extra work initially, but it’s actually a shortcut. That sentence takes 10 seconds now and saves 10 minutes later.
Good context examples:
- “Perfect example of conversational landing page copy”
- “Study showing remote workers are more productive—cite in article”
- “Their color palette is exactly what I’m going for”
- “Audience question: how to stay motivated long-term”
Bad context examples:
- “Interesting”
- “Read later”
- Nothing at all
The first type transforms links into usable assets. The second type creates digital clutter.
Step 4: Set a Review Ritual#
Pick a time that works for you—Sunday morning, Friday afternoon, daily before bed—and spend 10-20 minutes reviewing:
What did I capture this week? Browse your new saves. Do they need better organization? More context? Connections to other items?
What patterns am I noticing? Are three separate resources actually exploring the same idea? Is a new theme emerging that deserves its own collection?
What am I ready to create? Have you accumulated enough material on a topic that creating something feels easy now?
This isn’t busywork. You’re compounding your creative capital and identifying creation opportunities.
Step 5: Create From Abundance#
Now when it’s time to create, you have a completely different experience:
Instead of: “I should write something… but about what?”
You experience: “I’ve collected fifteen fascinating resources about habits. I could synthesize these into an article comparing different frameworks.”
Instead of: “I need video ideas… let me brainstorm…”
You experience: “My ‘video ideas’ folder has twenty concepts I got excited about over the past month. Which one feels most energizing today?”
The creation itself is faster because you’re not simultaneously researching and creating. You’re assembling, synthesizing, and adding your unique perspective to pre-organized material.
What Changes When You Organize First#
After you’ve been organizing consistently for a few months, several things shift:
Creation stops feeling hard. It’s not that you never struggle with the craft—writing, editing, and refining will always require effort. But the starting stops being hard. You never face a blank page with nothing to say.
Your quality improves. When you’re creating from abundant, well-organized research, you cite better examples, reference stronger sources, and make more interesting connections. Your work has more depth because you’re building on months of collected thinking.
You develop a unique perspective. As you collect resources over time, you start noticing patterns others miss. Your organized collections reveal connections that aren’t obvious in individual articles. This unique synthesis becomes your creative voice.
You become prolific without burning out. You can maintain consistent output because you’re not manufacturing ideas on demand. You’re pulling from a reservoir you’ve been filling steadily. Creation becomes sustainable.
Opportunities multiply. That collection of design resources becomes a newsletter. Those audience questions become a course outline. Your organized research transforms into multiple creative outputs because you can see the connections.
The Compounding Effect#
Here’s the beautiful part: organized inputs compound exponentially.
In month one, you save 50 resources. Finding them again is slightly better than using search.
In month six, you have 300+ resources across organized collections. Now when you’re creating, you have abundant material and you can see patterns across what you’ve collected over time.
In year two, you have 1,000+ organized items. Your collections are rich knowledge bases. You rarely need to research from scratch—you’re usually drawing from pre-curated material. Creation happens at 5x speed.
And unlike followers or revenue, this capital belongs entirely to you. It’s platform-independent, algorithm-proof, and genuinely useful.
Your organized collections become:
- The research database for your book
- The curriculum for your course
- The content calendar for your newsletter
- The reference library for your work
- The idea generator for your next project
It’s not one system doing one thing. It’s creative infrastructure that makes everything easier.
Stop Creating from Scratch#
The creators you admire aren’t more disciplined or more talented. They’ve just stopped creating from scratch.
They’ve built systems that turn everyday browsing into creative capital. Every interesting article becomes material for future work. Every example they admire informs their craft. Every question their audience asks becomes content direction.
Then when it’s time to create, they’re not starting from zero. They’re assembling from abundance.
You can build this same system. You don’t need to change your entire workflow overnight. Just start:
- Choose a tool for saving links (stashed.in makes this effortless)
- Create 3-5 collections for topics you care about
- Save everything interesting with one sentence of context
- Review weekly for ten minutes
- Create when you have enough material
The first month might feel like you’re just collecting. But by month three, you’ll open your collections and think: “I could create ten things from this material.”
That’s when you realize: you’re not blocked anymore. You’re not stuck for ideas. You’re just choosing what to build next from your organized abundance.
The blank page stops being scary. Creation stops being hard. You become prolific because you organized first.
Start collecting today. Your future creative self will thank you.
