- Read a lot. Read the stuff you love. Read the stuff you want to. Read the stuff inside your business. Read the stuff outside of your business. Just. Keep. Reading. Be the type of person who has to read the back of the cereal box.
- Write a lot. Write when you want to, and when you don’t. Write when your inspired, and when your not. Write your business copy. Write fiction. Write non-fiction. Ideas belong in concrete form, and not in your head.
- Edit later. Sometimes the best ideas take a little bit of polishing. Don’t be surprised if they’re not polished diamonds the moment they pop into your head. Write them down anyway. When you self edit, you run the risk of losing your best work.
- Clear your head. There’s a reason so many creatives talk about getting their best ideas in the shower. The brain has a funny way of working most effectively outside the hours of 9 to 5. When you’re not pouring over the problem, sometimes the solution just happens. So go, take out the garbage, and empty the dishwasher. It’s not going to kill you.
- Stay open to ideas. Those people in your life, and surrounding your business, they may know something. Pay attention to little bits of conversation. Pay attention to the things that you originally thought were irrelevant. It might just be where your next idea strikes.
When you’re not quite sure what to do next, write some more. Break your routine if you need to. Try writing in the morning if you struggle in the evening. Change your surroundings. Try writing in a (gasp!) notebook if you struggle at the computer. If the house is distracting, go to Starbucks. If Starbucks is distracting, get a pair of headphones, or go home. Shut your social media accounts down for an hour.
The point is that when you’re creating, every last detail in your environment matters. Experiment, but don’t procrastinate. Keep writing. Something awesome is around the corner.
Matt Brennan is a Chicago-area marketing writer and copy editor. He is also the author of Write Right-Sell Now.
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