Have you noticed the new quotes I’m adding as the featured image for my blog posts? My blogging friend, Josh White, noticed it and was jealous that I had the idea first. (I’m sure someone else is doing it. I’m sure I’m not the first.)
But I laugh that he’s jealous of my idea. Because my idea was really born out of a bit of laziness.
I needed to start using Pinterest and Google+ more effectively. Those are both very visual mediums. And my writings on my blog aren’t very visual. So I needed to find a way I could leverage my blog posts on those platforms.
I was already finding images on my site, Mopho.to, and cropping them to a size that worked well with my design. Why not just add a quote from my blog? Then I can share that same image on Google+ and Pinterest easily. Simple solution.
A happy byproduct of the decision, though, is that it makes my links work better for Facebook and Twitter too! The same visual concept that makes my blog posts stand out on those other mediums applies here too.
So you see, it wasn’t really stroke of genius or anything that I started doing this. I just needed to solve a problem and wanted to exert the least amount of energy possible.
Solution!
I think the best ideas are often born out of laziness. Perhaps not laziness, but definitely a way to solve a problem without exerting a ton of emotional and physical energy.
That’s why our best ideas don’t seem like our best ideas. They come to us naturally and don’t seem too special. But that’s the beauty of brilliant ideas: they’re easy.
Isn’t creativity fun?