You had a great conversation with a customer yesterday. Or you solved a tricky problem at work. Or you noticed something interesting about your industry. You thought, "I should post about this on LinkedIn."
Then you opened the app, stared at the blank editor, and gave up.
Sound familiar? You're not alone. The gap between having an idea and turning it into a post is where most content dies. Here's how to bridge that gap quickly.
Why ideas get stuck
The problem isn't a lack of ideas. Most professionals have several post-worthy moments every week. The problem is the translation step — going from a raw experience to a structured post that others will find valuable.
When you sit down to write, you're trying to do too many things at once: figure out what to say, how to say it, how to structure it, and how to make it engaging. No wonder it feels overwhelming.
The solution is to separate these steps.
The capture-shape-post framework
Step 1: Capture the raw idea (2 minutes)
When something strikes you as interesting, write it down immediately. Not as a finished post. Just the raw seed.
Use whatever's fastest — a notes app, a voice memo, a text to yourself. The format doesn't matter. What matters is capturing the essence before it fades.
Good captures look like this:
- "Customer told me they chose us over competitor because of one small feature I almost didn't build"
- "New hire asked why we do X this way, and I realized I couldn't explain it well"
- "Read article about Y, completely disagree with their take because..."
Notice these aren't posts. They're starting points. That's all you need.
Step 2: Find the angle (3 minutes)
Every good LinkedIn post answers one of these questions:
- What did I learn? — Turning an experience into a takeaway
- What do I believe? — Sharing a perspective others can react to
- What would help someone? — Teaching something practical
Take your raw capture and ask: which of these three angles makes this most interesting?
For example, the customer story above could be:
- What I learned: Small features can be your biggest differentiator (you never know what will tip the scale)
- What I believe: We spend too much time on big features and not enough on small delights
- What would help: How to identify which small features matter most to your customers
Pick one angle. Not three. One.
Step 3: Write the post (5 minutes)
Now you have an idea and an angle. The writing becomes much simpler because you know exactly where you're going.
Use this structure:
Hook (1-2 lines): Start with the most interesting part. Not context, not background. The thing that makes someone stop scrolling.
"A customer told me they chose us over three competitors because of a feature that took two days to build."
Story (3-5 lines): Share the specific experience. Include real details — names, numbers, quotes. Specificity builds credibility.
Insight (2-3 lines): What does this mean? What's the takeaway? What should the reader do with this information?
Closer (1 line): End with a question or a provocative statement. Give people a reason to comment.
That's it. Hook, story, insight, closer. You can write this in five minutes once you have your angle.
Real examples
Idea: Team standup format change
Capture: "Switched from round-robin standups to async video updates. Meetings went from 30 min to zero."
Angle: What I learned
Post:
We killed our daily standup three months ago. Nobody misses it.
We replaced it with a 2-minute async video update each morning. Everyone records what they're working on and any blockers. Total time investment per person: 2 minutes to record, 5 minutes to watch.
The surprising result wasn't the time saved. It was that people started sharing more context, not less. When you're recording a video, you naturally explain the "why" behind what you're doing. In a live standup, you just say the "what."
Three months later, we're more aligned than when we were meeting every morning. Sometimes the best meeting is no meeting at all.
What's one recurring meeting you've replaced with something better?
Idea: Pricing lesson
Capture: "Raised prices 40%, lost 5% of customers, revenue up 33%."
Angle: What I believe
Post:
We raised our prices by 40% last quarter. We lost 5% of our customers.
Revenue went up 33%.
Here's what nobody tells you about pricing: the customers you lose when you raise prices are almost always the ones who cost you the most in support, complaints, and feature requests.
The customers who stay? They value what you do. They're easier to serve. They refer others like them.
Underpricing doesn't just cost you money. It attracts the wrong customers and burns out your team serving them.
If you haven't raised your prices in over a year, you're probably leaving money and sanity on the table.
When you're still stuck
If you're struggling with the writing part, try this: talk through the post out loud before you type anything. Explain the idea to an imaginary friend. Then write down what you said.
This works because speaking is more natural than writing. When you talk, you don't overthink word choices or sentence structure. You just explain the thing.
Voice-based content creation takes this idea to its logical conclusion. Instead of forcing yourself to write, you talk about your ideas and experiences naturally. The conversation surfaces stories and insights you wouldn't have thought of on your own, and the output becomes the foundation for multiple posts.
The best system is the one you'll actually use. Whether you write, speak, or some combination — the framework stays the same. Capture, shape, post. Ten minutes, done.