Writing has many phases. Thus, capturing your ideas, both the good and the not-so-good ones, is part of the process. Here are three ideas to get and keep your flow going so that you postpone your procrastination. There’s always time for that later. . . .
- Open a document.
Whether it is a document on your computer or a physical document that you have in a folder (imagine that!) or however you received the document you need to be working on . . . open it. It is difficult to write without having a document open and ready for our words.
Stop procrastinating and open a document and see what happens. It might be quite productive! Really, this is the first idea and it’s kind of surprising how many writing procrastinators don’t get started with this.
- Open your brain so there is flow.
Our brain can be our very best friend when we write or it can really seem to get in the way. If your brain is somewhat dammed up, then you need to get it moving again.
Just sit and envision your brain like a dam that is either overflowing or better yet, that has been opened to allow for a controlled flow. In your case, you are allowing ideas, thoughts, words, directions, structures, and concepts to flow through. There’s no blockage, only flow.
- Always capture ideas.
Great ideas can come to us at any time: in a meeting (that of course, is not about writing), sitting and waiting for the campus shuttle, watching a ball game, in the middle of writing about something else, while grading papers, and so on.
Never let an idea slip away. Keep tools available so you can jot down these random thoughts and ideas. When the idea occurs to you, there is no way for you to know if the idea will be good or not-so-good. You can make that determination later.
The main idea here is that you capture any and all ideas related to your writing, whenever they show up. As Peg Bracken reflects:
“Every idea is my last. I feel sure of it. So, I try to do the best with each as it comes and that’s where my responsibility ends. But I just don’t wait for ideas. I look for them. Constantly. And if I don’t use the ideas that I find, they’re going to quit showing up.”
You aren’t lacking for ideas. Allow them to be there for you so you can postpone your writing procrastination.
Meggin McIntosh, the PhD of Productivity, is an award-winning professor who now works with academics who prefer overjoyed to overwhelmed. She is a former university professor and administrator and currently a coach, author, and workshop leader. People who are overwhelmed and would prefer to be overjoyed instead, are the people I’m fortunate enough to connect with.
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