Last week when I wrote my blog article The Importance of Writing Your Blog Posts Ahead of Time, and a commenter asked me: “How do you come up with ideas of posts?”. This made me think a bit. It’s easy to suggest you write blog entries ahead of time but where do you get those ideas. So I looked at my most recent articles to see what inspired them. Surprisingly most of my articles from about a handful of different sources. They are:

My own direct and personal experiences running my company LandlordMax, this blog, and a few other projects

By far my biggest inspiration source is my day to day experiences running my company LandlordMax, followed by this blog, followed by all my other projects I have going (such as my book Interviews With the Pros, my upcoming website FindYourWeddingDress.com). I’ve written numerous times on what’s happening, what I’ve learned, etc. Last week alone two out of three of my posts where on these topics.

Examples include:

• 2 Very Simple Ways to Significantly Increase Your Productivity
  
• The Importance of Writing Your Blog Posts Ahead of Time
• 12 Tips on How to Prepare Your Laptop for a Presentation
• Yours Truly is in the Press Again
• What is Scope Creep?
• The Year 2007 in Retrospect
• Ideas are a Dime a Dozen
• Nine Woman Can’t Have a Baby in One Month
• A Large Monitor is Actually Cheaper Than a Small Monitor
• How to Write Out Your Domain Name

My experiences investing my money

I’ve done a lot of investing in the past. This is what’s allowed me to start and fund my company LandlordMax. Today however most of my money is one egg basket, my company (which I watch very carefully). I just don’t have the time to diversify right now. In any case, a lot of my posts stem from my past experiences investing and building up my wealth, along with my commentary on what’s happening today.

Examples include:

• Why a Balanced Portfolio Can Be Bad For You
• 7 Simple Tips And 5 Secrets to Increase Your Credit Score
• The Simplest and Best Way to Protect Yourself from the Real Estate Crash
• How interest rates can drastically affect real estate prices
• Can You Save Your Way to a $1,000,000 Dollars?

Looking at what’s going on in the blogosphere

I subscribe to over 100 different RSS blog feeds. Of course I don’t read them everyday, but I try. It helps me keep track of what’s happening in my niches, my industries, etc. The biggest tip I can offer here is that you shouldn’t just post about what other people say (reactionary), rather you should come up with your own ideas. It’s hard to explain, but use them as inspiration instead of a discussion or response to what someone else has said. I also recommend not adding another post on a topic that’s currently on fire. Don’t be just another voice in a crowd. Be a leader.

Examples include:

• Be the Best at Something Instead of Average at a Lot of Things
• Developer Debt
• Almost all of my Quick Links

Books

I read a lot. I try to read at least a book a week, or at the very least one book every other week. I’ve found that book authors often go deeper into their material, research it more, etc. than bloggers. But that’s probably because they write hundreds of pages on one topic versus a few paragraph to a dozen pages for bloggers. It’s the nature of the medium.

Examples Include:

• Now That’s Motivation!
• Another Record for this Housing Market Crash
• Is it Possible to Predict When a Market will Crash?
• Asset Risk Management

Personal discussions

One thing I’ve really gotten myself to do a lot more these days is to pay attention to the many discussions I have with other people. Look at their viewpoints. Look at yours. Look at the questions they ask you. Often a post will come directly from a question.

Examples Include:

• This post: Where to Get Blog Article Ideas
• What’s the Secret? How Do You Have Time To Do All That?

My Environment

Another thing I continually do is look at what’s going on around me. This is something I used to think I was doing well, but I wasn’t really. I didn’t fully appreciate what it means to look around you and your environment until I read books like Freakonomics, Blink, etc.

Examples Include:

• 12 Search Engine Optimizations (SEO) You Should Always Do
• Why Coupon Codes are Bad on Websites
• HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray: From the Consumer’s Perspective
• Free Business Idea

These aren’t my only sources of inspirations, but it’s a good start if you’re looking for places to start. Basically keep your mind open and look everywhere.