On the weekend I got ‘speakers block’. I had to do two speaking gigs and a couple of times in my preparation ‘hit the wall’ when it came to creative ideas on how to make my presentations to the next level. Luckily I’ve been speaking in public for around 12 years and have developed a few techniques for breaking through such blockages – many of which are applicable to the dreaded ‘bloggers block’.
So I’ve decided to adapt what I do to break through the dry patches in my speaking to tackle the question of how to battle against bloggers block. I’ve come up with 20+ short tips which I’ll share over the coming week as a series. As I add them one by one on the main blog I’ll also add them to this central page so you can have one place for the complete series. Feel free to chip in in comments as we go with your own bloggers block busting tips.
1. Change your Blogging Environment
Put your Hands in the air and step away from the Computer!
On Saturday when I came to the end of my inspiration I got out of the house for a couple of hours and went for a long walk. I often find that when I change my environment that inspiration comes. I walked down to the main street near our place and sat in the sun for half an hour and ‘people watched’. Somewhere along the way the ideas began to flow.
Getting away from your computer and blog can definitely help but so can blogging from a new location. Some of the places I’ve blogged from in the last few months include:
- friends houses – I have a mate’s house who I occasionally spend the day at so that we can work in the same room – it’s nice to have the company – even though he’s not a blogger I find our conversations lead me to try new things on my blogs
- net cafes – I did this for a day recently when my broadband went down
- public libraries – I did this for a week 18 months back and it totally gave me a new perspective on blogging – once I got past the frustration of having to book a computer and blog in one hour blocks of time
- other rooms in the house – I have a bit of a daily rhythm now where I move rooms during the day to keep things fresh – bed, office, couch, kitchen table, back yard – wireless is my friend
- local cafes – I have one cafe that i regularly take my laptop to. They don’t have wifi but I just write there (offline) and upload later. I find it’s a great place to blog without the distractions of incoming email and IM.
Change up your blogging environment and you might just find that it gives you a fresh perspective on blogging that will unleash some blogging creativity.
Great ideas! I might try a couple of them just to take blogging to a new level!
A PDA down by the beach here in Hervey Bay works for me :)
Hi Darren,
Great ideas…….they are very applicable to lots of different endeavors that require some creativity (writing in all forms, speaking, artistic work, strategic business thinking).
I find there’s nothing like sitting in the middle of a good old-fashioned street riot and talking to the TV news crews to get the blogging juices flowing. (It’s apparently a local Halloween tradition.)
Failing that, I prefer to find a nice quiet location, shut off the IM, close Thunderbird, crank up some hard industrial music, and go for it.
Oh, and net cafes are great, even though I do have broadband, just for a change of pace, and because they make the coffee for me.
I might want to apply your idea if I’ve blogger’s block in the future. For now, my main concern is that I don’t have enough time to blog!
All of the above, plus if I’m really struggling, then sitting up in bed works best for me – though you do need a laptop. I figure it’s the ‘get comfortable principle’
I find that there are some days when I feel more inspired and creative about blogging than others. I try to take advantage of them by spending a half hour or so jotting down the sudden flurry of clever post ideas that suddenly burst out of my subconscious. I keep that list (currently about 40 items) for those moments when I’m completely at wits end about what to post next.
To make sure I don’t lose my scribbles, I use a free web start page called Protopage (www.protopage.com) to capture and categorize my ideas and keep lists of links. The great thing about it is that it’s web-based, so I’m not tied to a single machine for posting or brainstorming.
I like the cafe option.
I regulary take my ThinkPad (love the IBM) to a cafe or restaraunt, enjoy the coffee and food while surfing or doing research and work on my laptop.
If they don’t have wireless I just plug in my GPRS modem.
Just have to be careful you don’t spill any beer on the laptop.
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Battling Bloggers Block
Darren has completed his series of tips of overcoming bloggers block. From Blog Tip 1. Change your Blogging Environment to Blog Tip 25. Mind Maps, there’s a wealth of information here. Even if you’re not battling blogger’s block, ther…