I don’t watch a lot of movies that have come out in the past 30 years, but when I do watch ’em, I like the ones that are low-brow.
For example, I loved Knocked Up.
Knocked Up is a Judd Apatow comedy in which a bunch of aimless bros are working to launch fleshofthestars.com. That’s a website where you can go look up the exact timestamp when different Hollywood stars appear naked in a movie. Presumably, so you can go and see your favorite actress’s nipples for a fraction of a second.
Knocked Up came out in 2007. Boy, how the world has changed in just those 15 years.
For example, this morning I found out that something like the reverse of fleshofthestars.com exists today.
It’s called Unconsenting Media. It’s a website that allows you to look up which movies feature which type of sexual assault. Presumably, so you can avoid watching the movie and being traumatized or re-traumatized.
And it’s not just for humans and sex.
Another modern site, Does The Dog Die, tracks movies in which, as you might guess, the dog dies. Enough people find such movies traumatic that Does The Dog Die gets an estimated 414,000+ visitors each month in an attempt to avoid dog-dying movies.
And now, you’re probably looking at me through the screen expectantly.
“Ok that’s kind of curious,” you’re probably saying. “So what exactly is your point with the above?”
To tell you the whole truth and a few things besides the truth, there is no point. That’s because I already had a fixed idea in mind today, a valuable point I wanted to share with you. And it’s something completely unrelated:
Reuse work you do.
It’s hard to get rich if you are creating one-off custom work, unless you are Pablo Picasso.
Likewise, it’s hard to get productive if, say, you spend hours researching and then writing an email, which is consumed in just a minute or two by your readers, and then you throw it away and start all over the next day.
But the trouble is, it usually takes me a lot of time and effort just to present a valuable idea in an appealing and surprising way.
Sometimes, like today, I fail at even that. Sometimes I can’t connect the fun/new/interesting thing I want to tell you, with the valuable point I want to make.
So if on top of that, I add in the requirement to create something which I can reuse… well, I often get completely locked up before I even write anything.
The good news is, the two parts of “info” and “tainment” don’t really need to be tightly linked.
And more good news:
Content doesn’t have to created with reuse in mind… in order to be reusable. So, you could say that my point today is really:
Do work you can reuse, and reuse work you have done.
That’s what I did with my 10 Commandments book a couple years ago. Some of the book was repurposed content I had written already for this newsletter, with the book in mind.
But some of the book was entirely new. Still, I repurposed it later for this newsletter. For example, I reused Commandment III within a daily email a few days ago. To which a reader named Phil Butler wrote in to say:
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Hey John,
I bought and read your book last night.
It’s a great read, and this commandment was by far my favourite. Although I’ve heard it a million times before, it didn’t click properly until I read your IOU analogy.
Thanks a ton…
Best $4 I’ve spent in ages.
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The fact is, I’ve used and reused the content from this book so much that, if you have the time and energy, you can search around my newsletter archive on my website, and you will be able to piece together almost all my 10 Commandments book.
Or, if you have $4.99, you can find the whole collection packaged up beautifully for you at the link below. Some people say it’s a great read. In case you’re curious: