You flick through your diary and suddenly realise that you’ve gotta write that blog post and you think… “ugh, oh gawd. I cannot be bothered”. How do you overcome that? Here’s one sneaky hack.
The tip I’m going to share with you today is about finding a writing flow, even when you’re not really a “writer” or you’re just not “feeling” it today.
Say you’ve pencilled in today to create your core pieces of next month and it’s a written thing. So, for example blog posts. You look at your diary and you just think, “I really don’t feel like it”.
So, you blow that off to do something else. It might be you go do your accounting, or other business, or even household chores. Because literally, right now, the last thing you want to be doing is creating. You just don’t wanna.
You’re not alone
I guarantee you, almost every writer has days where they just don’t think they can write anything. They just don’t feel it. Other days, they might leap out of bed eager to get stuck into whatever project they’re working on. Most practice writers employ the “fake it to you make it” method. And what do I mean by that? Say you’ve gotta get moving on creating your blog posts. You sit down to plan, write, whatever. And… nup. Nothing’s happening.
There’s this myth that you can only write when you feel inspired to do so, but seasoned writers who get things done on time and to deadlines will tell you that “waiting for inspiration” is a terrible idea. The best inspiration comes when you fake it.
Fake it til you make it
The trick here is ridiculously simple, but you might feel some resistance to it. It’s just put your bum on the seat and just work away until you hit the “flow”.
When you’re in flow things come easily you really have a sense of where something is going. You’re really motivated and pumped to get to the end result. Whether that’s a blog post or a full course that sense of being in flow is amazing.
Some days it won’t happen, but simply putting your butt down on your seat and getting some content down rather than none really matters. If you wait for inspiration to strike, you’ll pretty much never get ahead in your content. Because inspiration is too fickle. Too unreliable to be pinned down to a schedule.
Say you really don’t want to sit down and write. Like, that feels waaaay too hard right now.
Introducing your Secret Weapon – Voice Typing
I love Google Docs. I’ve been using Google Docs for years and I do all of my creation with. It’s all in the cloud, it’s super easy to share with any team members. I don’t lose anything if my computer crashes. And, every year it just gets better. I almost never use Microsoft word anymore for anything.
And Google Docs have a VOICE TYPING function. If you open up a new document, go to Tools, you’ll see “VOICE TYPING” as one of the options. It’s not perfect, but I’ve found it to be pretty good for me and my voice, at least to get ideas down.
Now, what does voice typing have to do with finding your writing flow?
We tend to think of using voice typing when we have a lot to say and can’t be bothered writing it down. Or it’s quicker to say than to type. That is when we are already inspired.
But I actually love using voice typing to get inspired. To talk myself into something.
Say in my content plan I have a core piece of content to create about x. I have lots of ideas and thoughts about x, but today, I just don’t really feel inspired to put them down and flesh them out. Or maybe I’m not sure of what angle I should take.
This is where voice typing can be really handy. Because it’s not as labour intensive as typing. I can switch it on and start talking. Usually within a few paragraphs, I start getting a sense of what the angle is. Or what the flow is. And I get excited about this piece of content.
For me, that’s usually the point at which I switch off the Voice Typing function and start tidying up and typing with my fingers, because I prefer that.
Voice typing can help you find your FLOW when you’re not feeling it. It can be your Secret Weapon in your content creation toolkit. It can get you out of your rut and get you in the mood to create.
Have you used Voice Typing? Does this trick work for you? Let me know in the comments below!
