A good Content List can be your best friend along the path to great Notebooking or it could be a wasted page at the end of your Notebook.  For as much as I use my Content List, I often hear of people making it and then ignoring it.  Not only is this a waste of a perfectly innocent page but it is a waste of so much creative potential.  Here are a few tips I’ve found over the years for getting the most out of your Content List.

• Make One  This is super obvious but many Notebookers think about what they want in their Notebooks then they begin writing.  Writing is great but do yourself a favor and write down on the last page of your Notebook those things you like to write about.  Having the list there gives you an advantage when the words don’t swim from your pen like fish.
• Set the Tone  A good Content List can set the tone of your Notebook in an intentional way.  Very often when I sit down to write, I end up with a Notebooking entry that finishes very different from how it began.  That’s all well and good for vomitive, adolescent drivel but we’re better than that.  Aren’t we?  When you create your Content List you create a tone for your Notebook.  Maintaining the tone you want is the first step to writing content you can be proud of.
• A Checklist of Sorts  Your Content List can act as a checklist, keeping your writing varied and dynamic.  It’s all too easy to write with a one track mind, only to realize in horror later that you only write about one thing!  Using your Content List like a checklist can go a long way to keeping your writing diverse.
• Challenge Yourself  Try putting something on your Content List that isn’t in your “wheelhouse”.  Every time you use your Content List you will move it closer to being IN your “wheelhouse”.  Want to get better at writing knock-knock jokes? (I mean, who doesn’t?) Putting knock-knock jokes on your Content List insures that you will write them more often.  Thus your Notebook will become a record of your progress as you become the greatest knock-knock joke writer ever!
• Update Regularly  If you aren’t updating your Content List you’re missing out.  While we’ve written an entire article about updating your Content List, the heart of it is asking yourself, “Am I happy with this?”  and “Is this working for me?”  Honestly asking yourself these 2 simple questions will make all the superfluous Content List items fall by the wayside.  This leads to a better Content List and that leads to better content.
• Use your Content List at the Right Time  Maybe this isn’t a problem for you, but it happens to me so often that I have to mention it.  I will sit down to Notebook with an idea or 3 to write about.  Then, before I begin, I’ll look at my Content List.  At that point I forget what I wanted to write about originally!  Only to remember later while driving or skydiving or something!  Don’t do this!  Don’t be like me!  Look at your Content List only after you’ve written what is on your mind.

With these ideas in mind go forth and write your best stuff ever! (with a little help from that humble page at the back of your book.)