Anyone who has had to write a long piece of text has experienced it: the writer’s block. Everything you want to write about is there in your head, but you can’t get it on paper. Here are three steps towards overcoming a writer’s block.
Key points
This post helps you to overcome your writer’s block in four steps:
- Clear your mind with a braindump
- Create order
- Don’t focus on perfection
- Use the pomodoro technique
How to overcome your writer’s block
1 – Clear your mind with a braindump
One of the main causes of a writer’s block, is that there are too many things on your mind at the same time. Your brain only has limited capacity for short term memory. When this memory is full, your brain stops working efficiently. The first step towards overcoming a writer’s block is therefore to clear your mind, by something called a braindump.
The word braindump quite adequately describes what it means. All you do is sit down with a (large) piece of paper, and write everything down that comes to mind. You even write down those things that are not related to what you wanted to write in the first place. For example, if the first thing that comes to mind is “I have soccer practice tonight”, then that is what you write down. Continue doing this for 5-10 minutes, or until nothing new comes to mind.
2 – Create order
After your braindump, you may have written down things that are actually relevant for the text you were working on. The next step is to create some order. Connect the words that are related to each other, or make some sort of diagram that makes sense to you. Alternatively, you can create categories of related items, and give these categories a name. This exercise will help to create order in the chaos of your mind. Now you can start writing again, but start small! Take one category or word that you have written down, and start writing about that.
3 – Don’t focus on perfection
When you start writing, don’t try to write perfect sentences from the start. It usually works much better to continue writing, and maintain a certain flow. Try not to worry about a perfect sentence structure, or about finding the perfect words to describe what you mean. Unless you’re working on a typewriter, you can always go back and edit the text later.
4 – Use the Pomodoro Technique
The pomodoro technique was developed by entrepreneur Francesco Cirillo in the 1908s, and has become a popular method to increase productivity. When Francesco was a student, he managed his studying time by using a kitchen timer that was shaped like a tomato (pomodoro in Italian). The technique is very simple, but can be extremely effective.
When you start writing, you set a timer for 25 minutes. You commit yourself to focused writing until the alarm goes of, after which you allow yourself a 5 minute break. During the break you can reward yourself by getting a coffee, having a little snack, or by scrolling through your Instagram feed. You repeat this sequence for 4 times, after which you allow yourself a 15 minute break. Again, reward yourself by taking a stroll outside, talking to a friend, or watching some funny videos online. Repeat the entire sequence for as many times you like.
If you have never used this technique before, you can also start with shorter periods of focused work. When you are more experienced, you can even work for longer periods of 25 minutes. However, this is not advisable for all tasks. A general rule of thumb is that you need more breaks for simpler tasks, compared to tasks that require a lot of brain work.
In this post you can read more about the Pomodoro Technique.
