Research. Time. Passion. 

Three things that go into finding a good story. Also three things we demonstrated during this past week. 

Now that we have completed a whole week of listening to audio stories, and getting inspiration for our podcast episodes that revolve around the cause and consequences of WWII, we needed to find our own stories to tell in our podcast episodes. Seeking a good story may seem easy, but finding and telling the story are the hardest parts. As I mentioned, there are 3 things we needed to demonstrate to find and tell a good story. 

RESEARCH & TIME:

Research & time sort of go hand in hand. Doing research means you need to set aside some time in your day to do a good thorough research job, and having time means you should probably do some research for your grade….at least. 

Personally, I can get distracted and sidetracked very easily. I knew that this project would need a lot of focus, because most of it depends on having good background knowledge about your topic. I set aside about an hour and a half everyday for the past week after school, to literally just sit, type, and look at my screen to find some evidence that would help support what I’m talking about in my podcast. Now this is definitely not as easy as it sounds. I had some trouble focusing about 30 minutes in, so I looked up some ways to easily focus, without distractions for a long period of time. Here are some results I found, that WORKED for me! 

Create a to-do list!

Things, a virtual to-do list, can help organize your thoughts, and give you a direction of what goals you need to complete by the end of your timeline. This helped me, by going back and checking off what I’ve done, and seeing what I need to complete. 

Find a quiet space!

Don’t let loud noises clutter your brain. Try to find a quiet, safe place in your house/apartment etc…, to work in. Maybe light a couple candles, but on some lo-fi beats, take a breath and sit at your desk and start your work in a safe and comfortable environment. Its said that no matter what you are thinking or worrying about, if you create a quiet, safe space for yourself, its easier to focus       and clear your head! It works for me!

PASSIONS:

I mean we are all passionate about something…right? But how do we be passionate about work? That doesn’t sound too much fun, doing work and actually enjoying it. Well, if you have anything that you found interesting during your research, anything you want to take the extra time to follow up on, channel that into passion for your work. Its as simple as that. 

What I do, is try to find one fact during my time of research and at the end take 3-4 extra minutes to follow up on it. It may seem stupid or unnecessary but its good to have background knowledge about anything, because you might never know when it would come in handy!

Down in the comments, comment something you are passionate about, or a technique you use to help you focus when you are completing work! If you try any of the suggestions I gave, let me know in the comments as well! I’d love to see it!

This journey is almost past half-way, and finding our stories are the end of our research journey, but the start of our podcasting episode journey, so stay tuned for an update next week.