Ahh, the internet. Connection, entertainment, but also a myriad of extremism, supersize me this, binge culture that. Pumping out content, somewhere along the way, has become the name of the game.

If you want to be relevant you have to pump content profusely. That leads to every man and his dog flooding the internet with half-baked content. But if everyone is flooding the market with half-baked content, the easiest way to stand out is to use high-quality content as your USP. It’s to slow-cook your content instead of sticking it in the microwave.

Dave Ramsey said:

“You can’t work three hours a week and make $100,000. Get rich quick doesn’t work. Crock pot mentality always defeats microwave mentality!”

People give vanilla a bad name. As if boring old vanilla isn’t the way to get people’s attention. But I’d disagree. Vanilla is my favourite. It’s stable, dependable, and delivers every time. I don’t want off-the-wall bubblegum and apricot ice cream just because the combination makes your head turn. I want something that tastes good.

Great content, evergreen content, makes your head turn because of the quality of the content. If you want quality, you need to give up the microwave mentality and get slow cooking.

The microwave mentality is getting you nowhere, fast

This microwave mentality is all over the place. It’s the streams of endless YouTube videos, the blogs upon blogs covering the same topics, in the same way, it’s the podcasts that started because Joe Rogan got big, not because they’ve got something to say. It’s this massive produced, low-quality sludge that blocks up the newsfeeds across the planet. It’s the equivalent of sticking something in the microwave for five minutes.

It’s the reason you’re not getting any attention

Microwave frazzled content is the sort of content that you’re not proud of, it’s the stuff that you write, record, or document because you want to put something out not because you have something to say. It’s the sort of content that when it goes nowhere, you’re not surprised.

And don’t get me wrong, virality is an unknown wilder beast that no one can tame, but that’s not the sort of stuff I’m talking about here. There are of course days when you pump out content because you have to deliver, being consistent is, to some extent, rather important. But that’s not the debate here.

The debate here is pumping out a consistent, low-quality product because numbers are the name of the game. Incorrect. Microwaved content is not the secret. Slow cooking your content is.

The slow cooker is better

So what is slow cooking your content? Well, it’s a labour of love first and foremost. It’s getting an idea and exploring it. It’s writing down your thoughts and letting them stew a while. It’s putting the words on paper, the ideas on the page, and letting them absorb into one another before taking it off the heat. Creativity is more fruitful with a little procrastination.

The idea is to not be impulsive with the messages you share with the world. It’s about creating content that you are proud of after five years, not just something you threw out because you think that’s what you should be doing. Mindful content creation is a thing and it should be taken seriously. Constantly throwing out content left, right, and centre devalues the whole game.

To slow cook is to:

• Produce content with value and meaning that you are proud of.

• To avoid impulsively pressing publish as soon as you finish the draft.

• To curate and mould the words.

• To strive for the highest standards of which you are capable.

Advertisements have saturated your television set so much that you don’t even pay attention to them when they come on. We’ve got so bored of our senses being flooded with advertisements that we schedule our coffee breaks to coincide with the ad breaks. We eagerly await the skip ad in 3 seconds button. And we pay extra for anything that allows us to fast forward.

We’ve become immune to advertising. It’s like over the last decade of advertisements being thrown down our throats we’ve been going through a decade-long vaccination process. Now we know what to look out for and how to avoid it like the plague.

The same is happening with content. We are becoming immune to the naff content online and we seek out the good stuff. It’s why the people that put out good content are the ones with big followings. It might have taken them a while to get there, but they certainly reap the rewards once they do.

How to slow cook your content

If I’ve convinced you to give up the microwave mentality — and I severely hope I have — then you will be wondering how to slow cook your content. How to ensure that you are not just throwing it in the microwave to get blasted by some electromagnetic waves and hoping it resembles something edible.

For this, you need to create standards. They need to be standards that you are happy with. They shouldn’t pigeonhole you into producing one piece of content per year, but that also gives you enough structure to ensure that whatever you put out the door is good enough to eat. Think of it like your very own bakery. You wouldn’t put bread out that was half-baked hoping someone would come and pick it up, would you?

Your content should be no different

So there is nothing else for it than a tick list. And there are a few things to tick off the list before you let something go out the door.

Think about it as a quality check for content. It’s the food safety standards for the quality of your content.

• Does the message come through loud and clear? Articulation is the name of the game.

• Have you gone through it with a fine-tooth comb to ensure that there are few to no mistakes?

• Would you want your idol to read it?

The main question to ask yourself here have you done the equivalent of stick it in the microwave or have you allowed it to slow-cook over a good couple of hours? You will know which one it is. You always know.

In summary

• Microwave content is everywhere and it’s the reason that you won’t stand out.

• Microwaving content is the equivalent of getting a ready meal and throwing it in. It does the job on paper but it typically has little nutritious value compared to the real thing, and it’s cutting corners.

• Slow-cooking your content is about being mindful of the stuff you put out. It’s about letting ideas come together over a few days, not just hoping for the best.

• You can slow-cook your content by creating some rules around the standard you want to adopt.

• Slow-cooking content is the most wholesome way to be proud of what you produce and grow a following that enjoys what you do.

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