Beat Writer’s Block by Writing

At the start of this year, I gave myself the goal of writing at least 1,000 words a day.

We’re going strong thus far, but what I’ve found is that there can be times when I have absolutely no idea what to write. I’ll sit in front of the laptop, the little blinking cursor on the infinite expanse of the blank page, and not have a clue what to do.

Often when that happens, I’ll just start typing and see where it leads. To quote the great Michael Scott: Sometimes I'll start a sentence, and I don't even know where it's going. I just hope I find it along the way.

And it – quite literally – always works.

Just Start

No matter what creative field you’re in – be that writing, content creation, poetry, painting, drawing, whatever – there’s going to come a time when you’re totally out of ideas.

When that happens, just doing something is infinitely better than doing nothing. And there’s some data to back this up. Neuroscientist Barbara Oakley popularised the distinction between two ways of thinking: focused and diffuse.

The focused mode is deliberate and analytical, whereas the diffuse mode is loose and associative, where unexpected connections happen.

Free-writing (or just typing and seeing where it goes) is basically a way of accessing diffuse thinking through the act of writing, rather than waiting for inspiration to arrive first.

Essentially, it forces the brain to “activate diffuse mode” and start coming up with ideas.

So, the next time you’re having a creative block, simply start doing the thing you want to do. It might be surprising just how quickly the ideas flow.