The greatest artist of all time, Leonard da Vinci, said, “The greatest geniuses sometimes accomplish more when they work less.” 

But what did he mean by that? 

He meant that the people who are the most successful are not necessarily the smartest or the most creative. It’s not just those qualities that make them successful. What really makes the difference is that they find ways to be more effective. 

Many books, workshops, podcasts, and even whole degree programs have been created to help writers be more effective. But here’s one simple way that you can achieve much more while working less. It is repurposing your writing.  

Here’s how it works: take the primary way you produce content and then use it in a bunch of different places. 

If you write blog posts, these can be repurposed into book chapters, email newsletters, social media posts, podcast episodes, videos, speeches, courses, and so forth. 

Any form of content can be translated into many other forms. It will take some effort, because the medium does impact the message, as Marshall McLuhan once said. However, it is usually less work to repurpose content than it is to create more content from scratch. 

Writers sometimes don’t repurpose their material because they’re afraid people will be upset if they see the same material in more than one place. 

But the opposite is actually true. People who like your content will appreciate hearing it more than once. In addition, not everyone will see your content in every format. People who watch your videos are not generally the same group of people who will listen to your podcast, or read your blog posts, or engage with all of your social media content.  

Try repurposing some material this week and watch how it connects with different groups. You will work less, but end up getting a lot more mileage out of your material.