She suggests starting every day writing 3 pages, by hand, totally freestyle stream of consciousness to help get stuff out of your head and get you back into the practice of daily creation. It's not about what you write, you probably will never revisit it, it's just about the impact it has on your bigger creative flow.
I just found this last week... it's really helped me get some writing done, which is usually something I dread doing. You sign in and write. It saves your text and keeps record of how much you've written each day.
I had a really good streak going for a while, but a new job with an hour+ commute every morning killed it and I never went back.
That's was the best I did, every night I write my feelings and forget then. It makes me feel better and less heavy.
Write. Write down exactly what you are thinking. It will probably be hard at first, especially if you are not used to blogging, creating copy, or writing essays. That's okay: start by just taking a pen and putting words down on paper. Do not worry about grammar or structure. Switch from point to point as they come to you. The purpose is to get each idea down on paper. Structure can come later: read it again and rewrite it.
I have discovered, and I want to prove this but I do not yet know how, that when a person writes down an idea, the mind no longer stresses itself to remember that idea. This makes sense: why waste time and space indexing new information if it can just be looked up? Instead, your mind just remembers where to look.
Moreover, because they are out of your mind, these ideas will not rise to your conscious thoughts every few minutes to worry you. That project you have due next Monday won't stress you out every hour. Write it down. Write down everything you worry about that project. I might not finish in time. The package might never show up. Ken is so unreliable. Tim hasn't answered my email yet, should I email him? I haven't written the first page yet, but I have to write 20. Maybe I can write an outline first. Can I outsource this part?
Write it down, wr....
http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/guaranteed-stress-reliever-f...
Last month I found a free app for windows, ZenWriter. http://www.beenokle.com/zenwriter.html (I'm not affiliated with them). It's tremendously nice and clean full-screen app with good typography.
As soon as it pops up it gives some nice urge to start writing and makes it tempting not to stop until you have something down that you are happy with. Writing process seems like it induces a pure connection to your inner mind.
In all seriousness, though, writing does help. The productivity block you're talking about was the reason I started blogging way back in the day. I don't write much personal stuff anymore because I don't need to, and when I do, it's an email to one or two people and that's it. As chrisaycock noted, sometimes all you need to do is observe your thoughts and feelings, and then they get out of your way, leaving you feeling less burdened.
I always found that blogging was just one more thing for my to procrastinate and end up not doing. :-(
I'd recommend Stephen King's "On Writing", Ray Bradbury "Zen and the Art of Writing", and "Ernest Hemingway on Writing". All have great insights into the joy and struggles of writing, but each on makes you want to be a great writer.
Best of luck keeping it up!
The results have been great so far, and those 15 minutes are becoming the most productive part of my entire day. It seems like this time basically assigns problems to my brain, which it works on unconsciously while I'm walking home from the lab.
Because writing is thinking, writing is great. I wonder, though, are there other ways to think which are just as potent, or even more so?
Another writing tip: When you are really upset about something and want to rip someone a new one, write them an email but don't send it. Write what you want to say, get it out of your system, the thing is say whatever you want. Then walk away for 24 hours. If you find upon returning to the email the next day that you still want to say those things, fire away, but most times you'll have cooled down by then & be able to re-write a much better and less "venting" email. This has helped keep me from burning many bridges in moments of extreme frustration.
Be careful with a diary though. Especially if you tend to be self-critical. Your own worst critic. I had one for a few years in a low, workaholic phase of my life and I was depressed rereading it in moments. So many negative thoughts. Ouch. I prefer now to write positive stories. Highlight the positive, accept the negative.
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DoTheSimplestThingThatCouldPossiblyWo...
I often get stuck when I want to combine the best aspects of various possible solutions, but can't. The writing lays it out there and helps me get over my perfectionism.
Why wait for the New Year to resolve to write every day? Things that clear your mind and make you feel better shouldn't get pushed aside because of other life things (work, errands, whatever). That's been my problem, I admit.
And the best part of daily writing is you don't need to be a "Writer" to do it.
- Allows infinite depth. This is possible in Word but not many other apps, however, I find my task-list to require atleast 4-5 levels of depth to model correctly - Allows instant focus. I have a todo-list open right now that has 23 bullet items, it's nested 5 levels deep among a whole bunch of other items.
Writing is great (even though I do it very rarely) but a todo list (to me) is the absolute simplest way to model things that are "stuck" in my mind and preventing other top of the mind shower thinking.
Get it out, acknowledge you don't feel good, objectify the issue, then do your best to find the good aspects in those issues so they are no longer weights.
