A book that changed how you work.First question: Which idea from it do you still use most weeks?
A day with no screens.First question: What would you reach for in the morning instead?
A kind word you have never forgotten.First question: What had you done to earn it?
A letter to yourself five years ago.First question: What would you tell that person to stop worrying about?
A listener question, answered at full length.First question: Which question keeps arriving that a short reply never settles?
A mistake you see everywhere.First question: Where did you last spot it, and what would have fixed it?
A myth about your subject that will not go away.First question: What do people keep repeating that is simply not so?
A place every fan of your subject should visit.First question: What would you go and see there first?
A recipe, a route or a routine, step by step.First question: Which step do people skip that they should not?
A small habit that made a large difference.First question: How did the habit start, and how long before it stuck?
Show all 180 podcast topics (170 more)
Solo, continued
A thank-you episode.First question: Who helped the show along without being asked?
A tradition worth keeping.First question: Who kept it going before you did?
A walk through your workspace.First question: What sits nearest your chair, and why has it earned the spot?
A year in review: what worked and what did not.First question: What would you do again without changing a thing?
Advice you waved away and later took.First question: Who gave it, and when did you see they were right?
An opinion you held last year and have since dropped.First question: What did you believe before, and what turned you around?
An ordinary thing you find beautiful.First question: When did you stop and look at it properly?
An unpopular opinion about your subject, defended.First question: Which view of yours would most people in your field argue with?
The beginner mistake you made for far too long.First question: What were you doing wrong, and who finally pointed it out?
The best question a listener ever sent.First question: Why has that one stayed with you?
The case for doing less.First question: What did you drop that you have never missed?
The day your hobby nearly beat you.First question: What went wrong, and what made you come back to it?
The episode you kept putting off.First question: Why has this one sat on the list for so long?
Five things you would tell someone starting out today.First question: Which of the five do you wish you had heard soonest?
The history of one everyday object.First question: Who needed it badly enough to invent it?
How you decide what to make next.First question: What moves an idea from the list to the desk?
How you get unstuck.First question: What do you try first when nothing is working?
How you know when a piece of work is done.First question: What is your test for finished, as against good enough for today?
How you plan an ordinary week.First question: What goes into the calendar before anything else?
How your subject has changed since you began.First question: What was normal then that would look odd now?
Lessons from your worst result.First question: What did you change the very next time?
The most argued-over question in your subject.First question: Where do you stand, and what would change your mind?
One hour that taught you more than a year.First question: Where were you, and what happened in that hour?
One sentence you wish you had written.First question: Where did you read it, and why can you not improve on it?
The one tool you would replace the same day it broke.First question: What does it do that nothing else on your desk can?
The part of your work nobody sees.First question: What takes the most time and gets the least notice?
The project you abandoned, and why.First question: At what point did you know it was time to stop?
The question you get asked at every gathering.First question: What is the short answer, and what is the true one?
Rules of thumb you live by.First question: Which rule did a bad day teach you?
The season you like least, given a fair hearing.First question: What is the one good thing you will admit about it?
The shortcut you refuse to take.First question: What would you lose by speeding it up?
The skill you had to learn three times.First question: What were you doing on the day it made sense at last?
Small things that rescue an ordinary day.First question: Which one could you have before this episode ends?
Something old you still use.First question: How long have you had it, and what has it outlasted?
The sounds of your day, described.First question: What do you hear before you have opened your eyes?
The story of how this show began.First question: Who heard the idea first, and what did they say?
The thing you are a beginner at this month.First question: What is harder about it than you expected?
Things that are better small.First question: What did you once want bigger, and now would not?
Things you say no to, and why.First question: Which no took you the longest to say?
Three things you got wrong in an earlier episode.First question: Which correction came from a listener?
The weather you do your best work in.First question: What is it about that sky that gets you going?
What a typical day really looks like.First question: Which part of the day would surprise someone outside your field?
What nobody tells you about getting started.First question: What surprised you in the first month?
What you learned from a complete beginner.First question: What did they ask that you could not answer?
What you would do with a free month.First question: What is the one thing you would start on the first morning?
What you would rescue from your desk.First question: Which three things come with you, and what stays behind?
What you would teach if you had one lesson.First question: What could the class do afterwards that it could not do before?
The words of your field, explained for a newcomer.First question: Which word confused you most when you were new?
Your subject in ten years.First question: What do you expect to be gone, and what will be everywhere?
Your subject, explained to a ten-year-old.First question: Where would you begin: with a story, a picture or a question?
Co-hosts 60
A debate with a silly motion.First question: Is cereal a soup, and which of us argues yes?
A list of small joys, made by turns.First question: Which one comes to mind first, before you have had time to think?
A top five, built by turns, with one veto each.First question: Top five of what, and who spends the veto too early?
A true story and an invented one: guess which is which.First question: Which of my two do you doubt before I have finished?
Add one new holiday to the calendar.First question: What does everyone eat on it, and what is not allowed?
Agree on the rules of a perfect lazy Sunday.First question: What time does the day start, and who decides?
The best and worst advice we ever took.First question: Whose advice was it, and how long did you follow it?
The best seat: in a cinema, on a train, at a table.First question: Aisle or window, and will you swap if I ask nicely?
Build a sandwich by taking turns, a layer each.First question: What is the bread, and will I agree?
Choose a mascot for the show.First question: Is it an animal, an object or something made up?
The compliment round.First question: What is one thing about my half of the show you would not change?
Design a town from scratch.First question: What sits in the middle: a square, a park or a market?
Draw up the rules of a new sport.First question: Where is it played, and what counts as a point?
Each host argues the side they do not believe.First question: Which of your own opinions will you argue against today?
Each host brings a small hill to defend.First question: What tiny opinion will you not give up today?
Each host brings an object and tells its story.First question: What have you brought, and where has it been?
Each host defends a food the other dislikes.First question: What am I wrong about, and how would you cook it for me?
Each host drafts a team of three snacks for a long drive.First question: Who picks first, and what goes in the first round?
Each host plans the other's ideal day off.First question: What have you put in my morning?
The early host against the late host.First question: What have you done by the time I wake up?
Fill a time capsule for this year.First question: What is the one object you would put in first?
Get lost on purpose: plan a drive with no map.First question: Do we turn left or right at the end of the road?
Guess each other's answers.First question: What would I name as my favorite meal of the week?
The mailbag episode.First question: Which question shall we take that we have been dodging?
Old sayings, put to the test.First question: Which saying do you live by, and which is plain wrong?
One host explains a hobby the other knows nothing about.First question: Which word of it should I learn first?
Overrated or underrated: each host brings five.First question: What is on your list that you expect me to fight?
Pick a new skill for each other to learn.First question: What should I take up, and what makes you think I could?
Plan a meal where every dish is one color.First question: Which color gives us the best table?
Plan a party with no screens.First question: What are the guests doing in the first half hour?
Predictions for next year, to be checked later.First question: What are you sure enough about to say on tape?
Quiz each other on the show's own subject.First question: What is the one question you are certain I will miss?
Rank the chores from best to worst.First question: Which chore would you trade away, and what would you take in return?
Rank the four seasons, and defend the order.First question: Which season do the two of you place furthest apart?
Rename everyday things.First question: What should a spoon have been called all along?
Review something ordinary as if it were grand.First question: How many stars for the walk to the corner, and why?
Rules for a good houseguest.First question: What is the one thing a guest must never do?
The rules of this show, written down at last.First question: What is rule one, and which of us breaks it most?
Settle a kitchen argument.First question: Does the sauce go on top or underneath?
Small inventions the world still needs.First question: What everyday annoyance would yours fix?
Stories we tell too often.First question: Which story of mine could you tell for me by now?
Swap jobs for a day.First question: Which part of my day would you get wrong before lunch?
Tastes that changed: what we came around to.First question: What did you refuse to eat that you now ask for?
Teach each other one small skill.First question: What can you show me that I could do by the end of the episode?
Things that are better shared, and things that are not.First question: What will you never split with anyone?
Things we disagreed about when we met.First question: Which of us has come around since then?
Things we pretend to understand.First question: What do you nod along to without knowing how it works?
Things we were late to.First question: What did everyone enjoy for years before you gave it a go?
Things we would bring back from the past.First question: What did everyone stop doing that you miss?
This show a year from now.First question: What should be different, and what must stay as it is?
Three house rules for the recording table.First question: What gets banned from the table first?
The weather report, argued.First question: Is a gray drizzle cozy or dreary?
What each of us was like at twelve.First question: What were you sure of then that makes you laugh now?
What makes a good neighbor.First question: Is the best neighbor the one you see every day or hardly at all?
What the other host does better.First question: What do I do that you have quietly copied?
What we would do with an empty room.First question: Is it a workshop, a library or a place to nap?
Who would last longer on a week of camping?First question: Which of us gives up, and on which night?
Words only our families used.First question: What did your family call a thing that nobody else did?
Would we survive as roommates?First question: What habit of mine would end it in the first week?
Write the opening line of a story together.First question: Who is in it, and what have they just dropped?
Interview 60
A day in the guest's working life.First question: What have you already done by the time most people start work?
A lesson learned late.First question: What took you a year to learn that you could now explain in a minute?
A lightning round to close.First question: Morning or evening, pen or keyboard, plan or wing it?
A place that shaped the guest.First question: Where do you go to think, and what is it like there?
A question that stopped the guest in their tracks.First question: What question made you stop and think, and who asked it?
A story the guest tells at dinner.First question: Which tale do your friends ask you to tell again?
A typical problem, solved aloud.First question: Can you walk us through one you cracked not long ago?
A week the guest would live again.First question: Which week of your working life would you repeat, and why that one?
Advice the guest disagrees with.First question: Which common tip in your field would you tell people to ignore?
The difficult bit that looks easy.First question: Which part of the job would an audience never guess is difficult?
The guest and their audience.First question: What has someone who follows your work told you that stuck?
The guest as a beginner.First question: What do you remember about your first attempt?
The guest away from their work.First question: What do you do that has nothing to do with the day job?
The guest turns the tables.First question: What would you like to ask me before we finish?
The guest's craft, in one tip.First question: What one thing could a listener try tonight?
The guest's favorite failure.First question: Which attempt taught you the most by not working?
The guest's field, for outsiders.First question: Where should a curious person start: a book, a visit or a try?
The guest's idea of a job well done.First question: How can you tell good work from work that only looks good?
The guest's newest interest.First question: What have you been reading up on that is new to you?
The guest's own rules.First question: What rule did you make for yourself and have never broken?
The guest's proudest small win.First question: What are you pleased with that would never make a headline?
Happy accidents.First question: What went wrong that you would not undo now?
How the guest explains their work to a stranger.First question: What do you say when someone asks what you do?
How the guest faces a blank page.First question: What is the very first mark you make?
How the guest found their way into their work.First question: What were you doing just before all this began?
How the guest practices.First question: What do you still practice, and how often?
How the guest's field has changed.First question: What could you do when you started that nobody can now?
If the guest started again today.First question: What would you do differently in year one?
Listeners' questions, put to the guest.First question: A listener asks: what is the best way to begin?
Looking back at early work.First question: What do you see in it now that you could not see then?
Myths about the guest's work.First question: What do films and books always get wrong about what you do?
The object on the guest's desk.First question: What on your desk has nothing to do with the work, and why does it stay?
One piece of work, from start to finish.First question: What was the earliest sign that this one would be worth doing?
The people who taught the guest.First question: Who showed you how it is done, and what did they insist on?
The point where the work turned serious.First question: When did you know this was more than a pastime?
The question the guest is never asked.First question: What do you wish interviewers would ask you?
The seasons of the guest's work.First question: Is there a time of year when everything happens at once?
Small details the guest cares about.First question: What tiny thing do you fuss over that nobody else notices?
The sounds of the guest's workplace.First question: What would we hear if we stood where you work with our eyes shut?
Teaching the craft.First question: What is the hardest thing to get across to a learner?
The team behind the guest.First question: Who makes your work possible that we never hear about?
Things the guest has stopped doing.First question: What did you give up that made the work better?
Tools of the trade.First question: What do you carry that an outsider would not expect?
What keeps the guest going.First question: What still gives you a jolt of delight after all this time?
What surprised the guest most.First question: What did you expect to be easy that was not?
What the guest hopes comes next for their field.First question: What would you like to see a newcomer try that nobody has?
What the guest is working on next.First question: What is on your desk this week that nobody has seen?
What the guest reads and listens to.First question: What have you recommended to more than one friend lately?
What the guest wishes they had kept.First question: Which early piece of work or tool do you wish you still had?
What the guest would change about their field.First question: If one custom of your trade could go tomorrow, which would you pick?
What the guest would tell a newcomer.First question: What should someone do in their first week?
What the guest's field gets wrong about itself.First question: What does everyone in your line of work believe that you doubt?
What the work has taught the guest about people.First question: What do people do that you only notice because of your job?
When the guest changed their mind.First question: What were you sure of ten years ago that you no longer hold?
Where the guest's curiosity started.First question: What did you take apart, collect or stare at as a child?
Where the ideas come from.First question: Where were you when the last good one arrived?
Who the guest works well with.First question: What makes someone easy to work beside?
Words only insiders use.First question: Which term from your work should the rest of us borrow?
The work that made the guest want to do their own.First question: Whose work did you study most closely when you began?
Working habits.First question: Where are you, and at what hour, when the best work gets done?
How this list was compiled: All 180 podcast topics and the first questions under them were written for this page on 2026-10-15; none is copied from another list. There are 60 for each of three show formats, which are our own sorting: Solo (a topic one voice can carry: a story, a lesson, a list or an opinion), Co-hosts (a topic two hosts take sides on or build by turns: a draft, a ranking, a swap) and Interview (a topic to build a conversation with a guest around, worded to fit any guest). The line under each topic is the question the episode can open on: the host answers it on a solo show, one host puts it to the other on a show with co-hosts, and the host puts it to the guest in an interview. Many topics say "your subject" or "your field" so that they fit a show about anything. Each line was read against the house rules of our question lists: it does not ask about money, health, bodies, looks, romance, politics, religion or a painful memory, and it names no show, platform, brand, game or person. The topics state no facts and have no right answer. Compared on 2026-10-15 with every other list on this site, so that no topic and no question under one repeats a line on another of our lists. Read again in full on 2026-10-15. Licence: own work
How it works
This podcast topics generator sorts every episode topic by who is at the microphone: one host alone, two co-hosts, or a host with a guest to interview.
Read the full guide
Topics for three kinds of show
Solo topics are ones a single voice can carry: "The beginner mistake you made for far too long." or "A myth about your subject that will not go away." Co-hosts topics need two people who can take sides or take turns, such as "Rank the four seasons, and defend the order." Interview topics are built around a guest and worded to fit any guest: "Tools of the trade.", "Happy accidents." Many say "your subject" or "your field", so they bend to a show about gardening as easily as one about trains.
From a topic to an episode
Answer the first question aloud before you plan anything. If the answer keeps going, note the points you made and record. If it stops after a sentence, press again.
A topic that suits your show only a little can still fill a closing segment.
Questions and answers
What are good topics for a podcast?
Ones the host can speak on without notes and a listener can picture: "A small habit that made a large difference." or "What a typical day really looks like." The first question under each topic tests whether you have enough to say.
How do I come up with podcast episode ideas?
Start from a question, not a subject. "Your subject in ten years." turns into an episode once you ask what you expect to be gone and what will be everywhere. Keep the topics whose first question you can answer at once.
What can two co-hosts talk about on a podcast?
Something to disagree on or build by turns. The Co-hosts topics are drafts, rankings and swaps, such as "Each host plans the other's ideal day off." and "Overrated or underrated: each host brings five."
What should I ask a guest on my podcast?
Ask how the work is done, not only how it began: "What do you carry that an outsider would not expect?" or "What went wrong that you would not undo now?" Each Interview topic opens on a question like these.