The Graveyard of Good Intentions: Why Your Best Content Ideas Never See the Light of Day
I discovered something uncomfortable this morning while redesigning my content workflow: I’ve built an elaborate graveyard where good ideas go to die.
I’m a systems builder by nature - I love creating elegant frameworks and processes. But here’s the trap: sometimes being good at building systems means you never actually create what those systems are supposed to produce.
Here’s what my graveyard looks like: Every day, I mark documents with stars (⭐) to flag them as “content-worthy.” These documents - theory frameworks, design specifications, research methodologies, philosophical explorations - represent hours of deep thinking. The stars go into my daily recap. The daily recap was supposed to feed a content pipeline. That pipeline would multiply each idea into tweets, videos, and articles.
Guess how many starred items have become actual content?
Maybe two.
The system is perfect on paper. Capture everything. Flag the gems. Process them later. But that “later” rarely comes, because I’ve mistaken organization for action. I’ve built a beautiful cemetery where ideas get proper headstones but never resurrect.
The “Idea Hoarder” Syndrome
Turns out I’m not alone. Reddit threads are full of people lamenting their “project graveyards.” One writer admitted they’re turning 35 and have never submitted an article for publication despite wanting to write since 3rd grade. Another described being an “idea hoarder” - collecting brilliant thoughts like treasures that never leave the vault.
We’ve all been sold the same productivity myth: if you just capture your ideas better, organize them more efficiently, and build the right workflow, content will naturally flow. But there’s a fatal flaw in this logic.
Capture without creation is just organized procrastination.
When Systems Become Excuses
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: I kept polishing the system instead of using it. Every time content didn’t materialize, I’d think “the workflow needs refinement” instead of “I need to actually write.”
Building the perfect workflow became my way of avoiding the vulnerable act of publishing. It’s safer to organize ideas than to share them. It’s more comfortable to design processes than to ship imperfect work.
This morning, while reviewing yet another week of starred-but-unpublished ideas, a simple question emerged: “What if I just wrote the content right now, in the moment when the idea is fresh?”
My immediate response was resistance. That would interrupt my “real” work. It would break flow. It would be inefficient.
But then I had to ask myself: what’s less efficient than not publishing at all? I was optimizing a system that didn’t work instead of trying something that might.
The Shift: From Capturing to Creating
Here’s what I’m testing now, and what you might consider for your own creative work:
1. In-the-moment creation When an idea strikes and feels content-worthy, we stop and draft it immediately. Not a note about it. Not a flag for later. The actual content, rough but real.
2. Lower the bar to “published not perfect” A rough draft published today beats a perfect draft that never exists. My new standard: if it’s helpful and authentic, it ships.
3. Build tools that enable action, not just organization Instead of more capture systems, I’m building a skill to recognize a content opportunity and draft it right away. I’m actively practicing doing the heavy lifting while the inspiration is hot.
4. Record everything, decide later Another idea I’m piloting is that I’m starting to record all my working sessions. Not performing for an audience - just working normally. When something content-worthy emerges, I flag it in the recording. Later, I can extract just those moments. This captures content without the pressure of deciding “is this worth recording?” in the moment.
Finding What Actually Works for You
The real insight is that we need to study our actual behavior, not our ideal behavior.
I learned that I’ll never batch-process content on Friday mornings, no matter how efficient it sounds. But I will write 1000 words in the moment when an idea excites me (case in point: this article, written immediately after discovering the problem).
Some questions to investigate your own patterns:
When do you actually create, versus when do you think you should create?
What conditions make you most likely to finish something?
Are your systems built for who you are, or who you wish you were?
The Test Case: This Article
You’re reading the test case. Instead of adding “write about the graveyard of good intentions” to a list, I wrote it immediately. Is it perfect? No. Is it published? Yes.
That’s the difference between a graveyard and a garden. Gardens need imperfect things planted in them - seeds that might not grow, experiments that might fail. But some things bloom, and those make it worthwhile.
Good Intention Graveyards only hold what’s already dead - polished headstones marking where potential went to rest.
Shorten the Distance from Thinking to Making
Don’t build another capture system. Don’t reorganize your notes. Don’t create a new workflow.
Instead, take one idea - the one you’re thinking about right now - and create something from it immediately. A tweet. A paragraph. A rough sketch. Anything real.
Then notice: How did that feel different from capturing it for later? What resistance came up? What would need to change for you to do this more often?
The gap between idea and creation isn’t solved by better systems. It’s solved by shortening the distance between thinking and making.
Your ideas deserve better than a beautiful grave. They deserve a messy, imperfect life.
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