I never set out to write a book. I set out to collect my thoughts.

That distinction matters more than you'd think.

For years, I struggled with the blank page. Every time I'd sit down to write something substantial—an essay, a guide, a real piece of work—I'd feel that familiar friction. The pressure to be perfect. To have a complete idea before I started typing. To structure everything correctly from the beginning.

Then I realized something: some of the best books I've read weren't written all at once. They were built from smaller pieces. Thoughts that accumulated. Ideas that connected over time. And yes, many successful authors are using exactly this approach—collecting short-form content, refining it, and transforming it into the foundation of something much larger.

This is the power of content repurposing, and it starts with jots.

The Jot-First Approach

A jot is simple. It's a single idea. Not a fully formed essay. Not a polished article. Just a thought—maybe a paragraph, maybe a few sentences—captured before it disappears.

When you commit to jotting instead of writing-to-publish, something shifts. The friction drops. You stop waiting for the perfect moment or the complete thought. You just capture what's happening right now.

Over time, these jots accumulate. And here's the magic: they become raw material.

I started thinking about my own writing this way about eighteen months ago. I'd write short observations about productivity, product decisions, writing itself. Nothing earth-shattering. Just real thoughts from my day. Some jots were 50 words. Some were 300. Most lived on my personal site, collecting a few reads from people who wandered by.

But they started connecting.

A jot about why I hate blank pages. Another about the psychology of shipping. A third about building in public. Separately, they were interesting observations. Together, they were starting to form something coherent. The skeleton of a book about creative work that didn't feel forced or artificial—because it wasn't. It was just my actual thinking, preserved.

From Scattered Thoughts to Organized Structure

The real shift happened when I started tagging my jots.

I created a tag called "book-draft" and began reviewing my library of posts. Which ones belonged together? What natural clusters emerged? An interesting thing happened: my ideas organized themselves. Themes appeared that I hadn't consciously planned.

The structure wasn't top-down. It was organic. It emerged from patterns in my actual thinking over time.

This is fundamentally different from the traditional approach where you outline first, then write to fill in the outline. Instead, you write first—in small chunks—and then the outline appears naturally from what you've already created.

I've started seeing other creators do this successfully:

Austin Rief (Breakdown) built his first ebook from the best conversations and observations he'd collected across his newsletter. The structure was there already; he just needed to sequence and refine.

Julian Shapiro (formerly at Descript) published frameworks and tutorials on his blog for years. Then he packaged several of them into a guide. The hard part was already done. He just organized and connected the dots.

David Perell created the "Write of Passage" curriculum partly from refined versions of his most impactful essays and threads. The thinking had already been tested. His audience had already validated which ideas resonated.

In each case, the jot-first approach gave them permission to write constantly without the burden of writing something "final." And paradoxically, that made the final product better because it was real and tested, not theoretical.

Why This Actually Works Better

There's a psychological component here worth understanding.

When you sit down to write a book, you're writing under pressure. There's a mental weight to it. You feel obligated to make every paragraph count, every section essential. This often leads to overthinking and writer's block.

But when you're just jotting? When you're writing for yourself or your small audience, not "the book"? You write more freely. More honestly. More often.

Then, months later, you look back at what you've collected and realize you have something remarkable. It happened without the crushing weight of intention.

There's also the iterative advantage. Each jot gets feedback—from your audience, from time, from your own evolving thinking. By the time you compile them into something longer, you've already refined them through revision and real-world testing. They're not first drafts. They're fifth drafts that just didn't feel final until you saw them in context.

The Practical Mechanics

If you're thinking about building something longer from short-form content, here's how to approach it:

Create as you go. Don't wait. Write the jots today. Don't over-research or try to make them perfect. Capture the thought.

Tag strategically. Use tags that map to potential sections or themes. These become your organizational structure. For me, tags became chapter categories.

Review periodically. Every month or every quarter, review what you've written. Look for patterns. Notice which ideas you keep returning to. These are your core themes.

Export and cluster. Most platforms let you export or organize by tag. Group your jots into thematic collections. Start seeing how they flow together.

Edit with fresh eyes. Take your grouped jots and read them as a sequence. You'll likely need to revise—add connections, cut repetition, improve flow. But you're editing and organizing now, not creating from scratch.

Fill the gaps. Only after you have the skeleton do you write new material to connect pieces or introduce concepts. Now writing the missing parts is straightforward because you know exactly what's needed.

You Probably Have More Than You Think

Here's what I realized: every creator who publishes regularly has the raw material for something longer. A newsletter? That's already a book outline. A Twitter/X account with consistent themes? Chapters waiting to be assembled. A blog with hundreds of posts? The treasure is already there.

The work isn't creating from nothing. It's recognizing what you've already created, organizing it, and refining it.

A book doesn't need to be a massive undertaking. It can be a thoughtfully organized collection of your best thinking, compiled into something others can hold and share. Fifty jots, refined and sequenced? That's a book. That's real value.

Start Small, Think Long

You don't need to commit to writing a book to benefit from this approach. The beauty is in the simplicity: write your jots. Share what resonates. Tag what belongs together. See what emerges.

If nothing emerges, you've still created valuable content and clarified your thinking. That's a win.

But something will likely emerge. Ideas have a way of clustering when you're paying attention. And one day, you'll look at what you've collected and think: "I could put this together as a book. I could actually do this."

And you can. Because you already have.

If you're interested in exploring how a jot-first practice could work for your own content journey, I'd encourage you to try it. Set up a space where you can capture ideas quickly—without the pressure to make them final. Use tags to organize. Let the structure emerge naturally.

Jottings is built exactly for this kind of creative practice. Start collecting your thoughts, and see where they take you.

What have you written that could become something bigger? Start jotting. The book is already in there.