The Plost Twist You Didn't Know You Needed
Why your best thinking happens when you step away from the screen
It happens more often than you'd think. I sit down at my desk, open a blank document and stare at it with the full force of my professional concentration.
Nothing.
I make another coffee. Still nothing. I reread the brief, check my email, reorganise a folder I have definitely reorganised before and then I clip on the dog lead and head out the door.
Somewhere between the front gate and the end of the street the idea arrives, fully formed and obvious. like it was just waiting for me to stop trying so hard.
If you work in any kind of creative field you will know this feeling intimately. The breakthrough that happens in the shower, the headline that comes to you at 2am and te perfect opening line that materialises the moment you decide to give up and watch television instead.
It is not a coincidence and it is certainly not somer Hogwarts style magic: There is actually a really good reason your brain does its best work when you are not sitting at a desk demanding things of it!
Your brain needs a back door
When you sit down to write and you are consciously trying to be creative, your brain goes into a kind of performance mode. It is working hard and trying to produce something and that effort actually gets in the way.
You are essentially standing in front of a door and pushing on it when the whole time it opens the other way.
Walking, especially without your phone or anything that needs your attention, puts your brain into what researchers call a diffuse thinking state. Your conscious mind steps back a little and your subconscious, which has been quietly processing everything in the background the whole time, gets a chance to do its thing.
TLDR: The connections get made and the ideas surface.
This is also why good copy so rarely comes from forcing it. The writing that feels effortless to read usually came from a writer who stopped fighting the blank page and went and did something else for a while.
What this means for your business writing
If you are a small business owner who writes your own content, this matters for you too. When you sit down to write a caption or a newsletter or an about page and you feel completely stuck, the worst thing you can do is stay at the desk and keep staring.
Give yourself permission to step away! Make the coffee, take the walk, water the plants.
Importantly, tell yourself you are not procrastinating, you are processing, because you genuinely are.
When the idea comes, which it will, write it down immediately. The notes app on your phone exists for exactly this reason. (Some of my best copy has started as a half-finished voice memo recorded while the dog investigated a particularly interesting patch of grass.)
A few things I keep in my back pocket for when I'm stuck
Read something completely unrelated to what you are working on: A novel, a magazine, a good long article about something you know nothing about.
Your brain makes unexpected connections when it is being fed different material.
Talk it out. Tell someone what you are trying to say, even a very patient pet and listen to what comes out of your mouth. Spoken language is almost always warmer and clearer than written language and sometimes the first thing you say is the thing you should be writing.
Change the location. Even moving from your desk to the kitchen table can shift something! New environment, new perspective, new ideas. It sounds too simple to work and it absolutely works.
Write something terrible on purpose (whaaat?): Give yourself two minutes to write the worst possible version of what you are trying to say. Get the bad stuff out and the good stuff has more room to come through.
The dog does not know she is part of my creative process, she thinks we are just going for an awesome and sporadic walk, but after years of doing this work I genuinely believe the walk is non-negotiable, not a reward for getting the writing done but a part of the writing itself.
So if you are stuck right now, close the laptop... Seriously. The words will be there when you get back. They might even be better ones.
Want to chat all tings copy? hello@zelixvirtual.com
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