In a way, writer’s block is just an excuse. I’m kind of mixed about it, though. While I want to be like those writers who forge ahead no matter what, there are definitely times where I get stuck. When the creativity doesn’t flow.
The best advice I can give is to keep making forward progress somehow. Call it writer’s block or low creativity—either way, if you’re running a business, you need to keep things moving. In this episode, I talk about a couple strategies that I employ, and I hope they will work for you too.
Writing Tasks
What are you working on right now? Producing content of any type involves many different tasks. I tend to divide the tasks into two categories: Creative vs. Operational. Creative tasks are: Ideating, outlining, writing. Operational tasks are: Organizing, editing, refining. Not feeling creative? Switch to an operational task instead. Do whatever you can to keep making forward progress.
Writing Tools
Are your writing tools helping you—or not? As a media producer (that’s what you are!), your toolset matters. It’s either helping you be more efficient or it’s not. If your tools are hard to use, get in the way, or slow you down—time to move on to something better. The two tools that I rely on the most for writing are Evernote and Scrivener:
- Evernote is great for capturing and organizing scraps and ideas. A tagging system allows you to access different notes by theme or state (meaning draft or final).
- Scrivener is simply the best tool for writers. It lets you focus on the writing, but it’s also a powerful organizing tool, allowing you to shuffle sections and chapters easily.
As I mentioned in the episode, here is the complete list of all the tools that I use regularly as a part of my own content strategy (plus a bunch of other planning tools, worksheets, and templates). None of these are paid endorsements—just my own opinion. Hope that you find them to be helpful!
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