How To Turn Your Favorite Medium Articles Into 3 Writing Ideas Per Day

Blogging lesson 10 of 150.

When I read Medium articles, one of two things happen:

1. I disagree with the writer.

2. I agree, but think the idea could be pushed further.

Both of these instances are perfect conditions for article ideas to manifest.

Reading “viral” articles is a best practice here.

Because you know these topics are hotbeds for attention.

So go to a Medium tag page:

“https://medium.com/tag/marketing”

There’s one. Quick tip: You can change the tag by changing the word at the end of that URL.

For instance, I could type in seo at the end and get a totally different page:

“https://medium.com/tag/seo”

Great, now take a look at the trending tab.

These are all the stories that are pretty popular on Medium right now.

What I want you to do is:

1. Read the articles

2. Write a sentence summarizing them

3. Summarize their major points

4. On a scale of 1–10, write down how engaging the article was

5. Write down where you disagreed (if so)

6. Write down how you could take their idea further (if so)

If you do this for 3 articles per day, you’ll have 90 article reviews after one month.

From this, you’ll have a great idea of what types of articles go viral, hot topics, and where you stand to add something new to the conversation.

Pretty dope, right?

Let me do this for Amardeep’s Wordle article.

1. Done

2. An interesting story of an opportunist stealing the creator of Wordle’s idea to create a paid version of Wordle. And telling everybody on the internet about it.

3. “Building in public” can make or break you as an entrepreneur. Do it the right way. And if you f*ck up, there’s always a way to make it right.

4. I’d give this a solid 7. Amardeep is brilliant, the topic is just not super interesting for me.

5. No disagreements with Amardeep here.

6. I think there’s an interesting article idea to come of this by telling the opposite side. People will steal your ideas as an entrepreneur. I’ve had mine stolen in the past. How can you minimize your chances of getting your ideas stolen?

Okay great. 

No doubt Wordle is all the rage these days, right? So Amardeep did a good job of cashing in on the popularity.

Also, stories of people stealing from others are pretty juicy. The controversy!

Maybe we need to take that into consideration when writing our next article.

You see, doing this exercise every day can give you writing ideas on demand. 

Use it wisely.

Welcome to my newsletter, 150 days to blogging mastery. This is the fifth of 150 lessons, which we’ll publish every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until the end of the year. Please subscribe on Substack or here on Medium.

For the next month, we’ll be talking about how to generate great writing ideas.

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