The "break glass" approach to writing articles

Ever hit a wall when writing your online content?

Move on and come back later.

As someone who writes a chunk of content every single month, I’ve encountered many dead ends and non-starters when looking to put together a post or article.

MANY dead-ends and non-starters.

At the beginning of my content creation journey a few years back, these roadblocks would screw up my day and put me behind the 8-ball with respect to my overall productivity for the day. 

Back then, I was under the impression that if I started an idea for an article, I needed to finish it right then and there. 

But on many occasions, I would run into an idea wall where, all of a sudden, the thoughts completely halted in their tracks and I wasn’t sure which way to go next. 

Sure, I’d step away, go grab a coffee, take a walk, break apart from the work for a minute, yada yada yada, but upon returning to the unfinished article…

…I’d spend another hour staring at the blinking cursor laughing back at me and judging every second of it. 

Ugh.

Still, I was determined to finish what I started, and would grind it out until I had a beginning, middle and end. 

And what would happen next?

Well, when I’d edit and schedule the article, I’d realize that what was on the page was total and complete dogshit and really didn’t work that well, so, I’d inevitably re-write the whole thing before I posted.

After repeating this process, I dunno, several dozen times over a couple years, I realized that this grind it out approach was hurting, not helping, my creativity process. 

So, I eventually adopted a new strategy:

If I can’t sort out the overall narrative and specific story points after walking away and coming back , the idea is put on the shelf and I move onto the next article to write. 

The very first time I adopted this new “break glass” rule to my writing process, I ended up feverishly creating an additional 3 articles in the time I spent staring at the blinking cursor!

And then, guess what?

After editing and scheduling those three blogs, the next day when I sat down to address the article that was kicking my ass, the ideas flowed like water from a firehose. 

Just like that, I finished what I started :)

Listen, I know how much of a pain in the ass it is to commit to sharing your expertise with your audience through your online content. 

Regardless of the difficulty, it’s an essential component to attracting attention from those who need you most by sharing relevant insights that help them get past their roadblocks. 

As a result, developing and maintaining momentum is key in getting you through the process. 

So when you start to feel like you want to bang your head against the wall because the words simply aren’t coming, walk away and try again. 

And if that doesn’t work, “break glass,” move on and come back another time. 

This approach will help keep your creative mind fertile enough to write other valuable pieces of content and build positive emotional capital that you can cash in when aiming to finish the work you started. 

Your audience will thank you for it :)

For more storytelling insights for expert-based business owners, I invite you to sign up for my blog. I’ll talk your ear off about it :)