If you know you need to write something and you’re struggling with where to start, a big blank page sitting in front of you can be very intimidating. However, it doesn’t have to be that way.
For me, notes are the key. Before I sit down to write anything, I already have a few notes put together for what I’m going to write about. In looking at my notes for this particular post, the note was created about a week ago and now I’m sitting down to write — but it’s easy to get started because I have those notes to help get me off the ground.
Related to note taking, here are some thoughts from Sonke Ahrens in his book “How to Take Smart Notes“. He starts off by removing the idea of the struggle:
They struggle because they believe, as they are made to believe, that writing starts with a blank page.
It’s echoed in a quote that he shares from Armin Nassehi, who said:
The white sheet of paper – or today: the blank screen – is a fundamental misunderstanding.
It really just comes down to note-taking. Simply having a rough idea and a few quick notes to get started makes it 100x easier to get rolling. Here’s what Ahrens said about that:
And maybe that is the reason why we rarely think about this writing, the everyday writing, the note-taking and draft-making. Like breathing, it is vital to what we do, but because we do it constantly, it escapes our attention. But while even the best breathing technique would probably not make much of a difference to our writing, any improvement in the way we organise the everyday writing, how we take notes of what we encounter and what we do with them, will make all the difference for the moment we do face the blank page/screen – or rather not, as those who take smart notes will never have the problem of a blank screen again.
My individual notes can often be very short, but it’s enough to get me started. Just having some idea of where you’re going can make all the difference in the world. For example, my post a few days ago about “That’s a great question” started with just that one quote in it. By putting that quote into a post, I was able to write around it and get started.
Publishing a new post every day isn’t easy, but I’ve not had to sit down in front of a blank screen in a very long time. I keep reading, I keep making notes of what I read, and the writing takes care of itself.
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