I have a dog. He is amazing. His intelligence, personality, and temperament are exactly what someone wants in a dog, to the point where at least 3 others that have spent time with him have decided to get dogs of their own. He’s also one of my best coworkers, and while there are a lot of things he does that that I personally wouldn’t do (I am sensitive to bad smells), he has also taught me a lot, and continues to impress me with new thoughts each passing day.
With little to talk about this Monday morning, I’ve decided to write a post about things I’ve learned about content marketing from my dog. It is not an exhaustive list.
Writing Tips From a Dog
- Anything Can Be Interesting – My dog smells everything around him. He’ll follow people everywhere they go. He never sits and does nothing unless he has no choice. For this dog, everything is interesting, whether you are making coffee, killing a bug, or about to change the channel. The same thing is true with writing. There is no such thing as a boring topic. There is boring writing, but the topics themselves can always be interesting if you give them the right spin.
- Repetition Can Get Tiring – My dog loves to fetch. But he only likes to fetch for maybe 10 throws, before he comes up to me and licks my hand and indicates he wants to do something else. Repetition can also get tiring in writing. When you have a large project that involves thousands of words on the same topics, it’s important that you try to mix it up and make the topics different for you, otherwise you’re going to get tired and want to give up.
- If You’re Not Working, You May As Well Sleep – My dog has unlimited stamina. We can walk for 10 hours straight in blistering heat, playing fetch and jogging on occasion and he’ll never get tired. But if you’re not walking him or playing with him, he goes to sleep, because he has nothing better to do. The same is true with writing. If you put yourself in front of a computer and write, you’ll be able to write for hours effectively. But if you put it off and delay it, you’ll probably never do much of anything.
I have also learned that it’s okay to bark at strangers as long as they give you a treat afterward, and that it’s more important to eat food that falls on the floor than it is the food you’re given in your food bowl, but those aren’t really related to writing.
While unfortunately my dog hasn’t yet learned to write, he has helped me with my work in other ways, which is why I will continue to send him a monthly petcheck. He earns his keep, and then some.
