Insights: how much content is too much?
rethinking the pace of creation in a content-saturated world
Playground Readers,
A short note today.
To write or not to write… that’s the question I’ve been sitting with lately. The reasons are clear – work has been full on. Launching an exhibition, getting Issue 3 of the magazine into production (it’s happening!), onboarding new team members, and then squeezing in a few favourite moments of time off.
Somewhere in between, I’ve been working on a few great pieces for this newsletter. But they don’t feel ready yet – like seeds that need a little more watering before I hit send.
And yet… we are behind schedule. The pressure feels real. So how do we move forward?
When mapping out this year’s studio playground strategy, I imagined space – space to pause, to learn, to get bored even. But if the schedule is packed, when does that happen? And how do we ensure what we create is actually great?
At the same time, my inbox is overflowing (yours too, I bet). The newsletter feeds – Substack or not – are relentless. I try to catch up, but soon the habit starts looking like this:
Read
Read
Delete
Read
Delete
Read
Delete
Delete
Delete
Delete all unread
And suddenly, I’m saving my energy for bigger, better things.
It’s no wonder. As Tiago Forte notes in Building a Second Brain:
“According to The New York Times, the average person’s daily consumption of information now adds up to a remarkable 34 gigabytes. A separate study cited by the Times estimates that we consume the equivalent of 174 full newspapers’ worth of content each and every day, five times higher than in 1986.”
So here’s the question: is there too much content? What if we saved energy for fewer but stronger pieces?
The numbers say consistency matters – that putting things out there regularly helps you grow. But I doubt anyone subscribes to a newsletter just for its rhythm – and is more really the best definition of growth?
So here’s my promise: we won’t send anything out unless we truly believe in it.
We won’t create anything unless we truly believe in it.
And here’s my question for you:
How much content feels like too much?
How often do you want to hear from brands, creators, whoever?
How much content do you consume vs. how much you wish you consumed?
As a one-part content studio, we want to put the best out there. And sometimes, the best means stepping back, slowing down, and focusing on things that truly matter. Quality, creativity & health.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Austė & Playground team
I sit with this question too. I subscribe to way more content that I can ever reasonably consume, but the alternative is to only have a fraction of it on my radar, and that feels... like a contraction rather than an expansion of potential. As a reader I take real delight in finding myself suddenly pulled into a piece that seems to have been written just for me about precisely that moment of my life; and as a publisher, I hope to write well enough, and consistently enough, to hit those odds. I think it's an art, rather than a science, which suits me just fine :)
I don't really think there is a clear answer on when content is too much. I think from the publisher PoV it's good to put out quality content, but from the content consumer POV I think it really depends on the day and state you are in. Some days, my full inbox of substack newsletters get deleter, and other days I read them all. In general if I want to hear from a brand or creator I love, I will even actively go and search out their content (maybe even those newsletters I previously deleted).