You’ve reached an influential stage in your career, so you want to start sharing your experiences and ideas with the world through writing. 

Maybe you want it to take the form of a newsletter like Drunk Business Advice. Maybe it’s for a blog for your company website. Maybe it’s for LinkedIn. Or maybe it’s for your employees, your college alumni group, or even your broader community.

But no matter the medium, or the audience, it starts with one thing: you taking the time to write your shit down. And you know this. You know the only way to start is to… start.

So you conscientiously block out a few hours on your calendar to sit down and write. You know you have ideas, but they come up short on the page. Despite spending several hours rigidly focused on writing, you run out of time, and don’t even come close to finishing.

Ok. So you didn’t give yourself enough time. Rookie mistake, right? You learn from that, and add a few more writing hours to your calendar to really knock out your first brilliant piece of writing.

But when you sit down to finish what you started, it still doesn’t come together before the clock runs out.

So you reach an obvious conclusion: “Damn, I really want to write, but I just don’t have the time.” 

That makes me sad, y’all. It breaks my poor little literary heart.

But what’s even sadder is that it’s not f*cking true.

👉 You’re only running out of time because you’re focused on the wrong thing.

And now — the story behind why this advice matters. 👇

This story is so common, it has become a trope. “I want to do it, but I don’t have the time,” is the most endemic excuse in all of human history. (Trust me. I’ve done the research.)

And it’s a valid excuse. We all have very short windows through which to cram all of life’s shit. So it’s easy to look like an “extracurricular” activity (like writing) as one of those nice-to-do-but-who-the-hell-has-the-time pursuits. I get it.

But in the case of writing — you’re not failing because you don’t have enough time. You’re failing because you’re dedicating too much time to the wrong thing.

What’s that “wrong thing”? 

Rigidly focusing on a page and expecting creativity to magically appear. 

When embarking on a writing project, most (disciplined) folks will set aside as much time as they have available to focus on the act of writing. But all the time in the world won’t solve for the fact that if you’re staring at a screen, forcing yourself to be creative, you will fail. Every. Damn. Time.

So what’s the solution?

Pumping out strong writing, on a consistent basis, has little to do with time or talent. It starts with a good system.

An effective personal writing system encompasses 4 steps:

But most folks only focus on #4, then give up when they invariably discover they “don’t have enough time”.

But the issue has nothing to do with time. They’re trying to frost a cake they haven’t even baked yet. They’re skipping steps that make the final outcome —a compelling piece of writing— impossible to achieve.

So before you can sit down to focus on writing, you need to get… distracted.

If rigid focus kills creativity, what sparks it? 

Distraction. Daydreaming. Defocusing. No lie. So stop thinking about everything you want to write about, and just let your mind go for a stroll.

I promise I’m not full of shit here — there are mounds of evidence that support the idea that engaging in light cognitive distraction, and letting your mind wander in the process, is basically a creativity incubator. 

And I can claim from personal experience that there’s no better method to help you retrieve memories and generate new ideas.

So what does light cognitive distraction look like? Well, I have good news. You’re already doing it. Activities that give us light cognitive distraction include:

I’m going to share my favorite form of light cognitive distraction: 

Pacing around the house, talking to myself. (And it’s pretty on-brand for me to admit that there’s usually a glass of wine in my hand.)

For me, there’s something electric about the act of pacing, gesturing, and talking to the air, as my mind wanders to previous experiences, or imagines new ideas.

And yes. My husband thinks I’m a lunatic. But he also thinks Drunk Business Advice is pretty darn brilliant, so… 🤷

The terms “shower thoughts” and “blank page syndrome” didn’t appear from nowhere. They’re rooted in the universal truth that we’re far more creative when we’re sudsing up in the shower than when we’re staring at a screen trying to access our own brilliance.

But I know what you’re thinking:

But you do have 100 brilliant ideas — they just flutter out of your mind because you’re not paying attention to them. You don’t notice them. They present as unhelpful thoughts or memories, so as self-protective humans, we shoo them right out of our minds.

This is especially true when memories of our frustrations, failures, and f*ck-ups appear. It’s wildly uncomfortable to relive those moments, so we push them into the depths of our subconscious, even though addressing them can be very healthy, and frankly, seeds fantastic writing.

This is going to sound really woo-woo, but writing is more about intention-setting than the physical act of putting words on paper. 

If you navigate your daily life with the intention to write about your ideas and experiences, the thoughts and memories that appear during times of unstructured reflection will present differently in your mind, because all of a sudden, your brain goes, “Ooooh, that’s great content!”.

But here’s the thing— 

Our minds aren’t designed to retain that information, so even though you’re viewing those thoughts through a content lens in that moment, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to retrieve those ideas when you sit down to write.

Which brings us to the next step in the process…

Memory retrieval is cue-dependent, and relies heavily on things like:

So if an idea came to you while walking, or showering, or talking to yourself with a glass of wine in your hand, but you’re now sitting at your desk trying to remember your ideas, you’ve lost the vital cues. So the idea vanishes.

This is why it’s important to capture those thoughts in the moment. You need to bank those ideas.

Idea banking is really simple — you just write shit down as soon as it comes to you, even if it seems a little weird or disconnected. Don’t filter it. Just capture it.

The best method for doing this will depend on your personal routine, and how you engage in unstructured reflection, but for me, a notebook is never more than a few steps away from me in the house, and I carry a small notepad in my purse.

For you, it might mean installing a voice memo app on your phone, or simply emailing yourself ideas as soon as they come to you.

The important thing is to have a way to record your ideas as soon as you occur. Then, when you’re back at your desk, you can dump everything into a central repository — your idea bank.

Some folks like to get fancy with the organization of their idea bank, but my advice is to keep it simple. My idea bank is literally just a Google sheet. 👇

And remember — just because you’ve written down a thought, and recorded it in your idea bank, doesn’t mean you’re required to turn it into content, so I’m serious when I say DON’T FILTER! Because even thoughts that seem incomplete, or out of left-field, can evolve into bridges that connect your most creative ideas.

Some of the most popular issues of Drunk Business Advice were (perhaps unsurprisingly) birthed from weird or incomplete ideas.

Forward planning has one important purpose — to remove friction from the act of writing.

So what does friction look like?

And the best way to combat this kind of friction is to simply get organized. 

Create a content calendar to map out topics from your idea bank, and correlate them to actual deadlines. So when you sit down to write, you don’t have to waste cognitive energy deciding on a topic — that part is done, and you can just start writing.

Keep your drafts organized and easily accessible through folder short-cuts on your computer, and throw all supporting documentation in the same folder as the draft it supports.

And finally, create an outline template that serves as each draft’s starting place. No one is forcing you to stick to it every time — but it really helps to have something on the page before you even start writing.

Y’all —  this is the easiest part. I promise.

But only if you’ve first made time for unstructured reflection, idea banking, and forward planning.

The good news is the first three steps don’t actually consume a lot of time, so you can still dedicate almost all of your available time to the act of writing. 

But instead of staring at a blank page, going cross-eyed as you try to conjure up creative brilliance, you’ll have instant focus, and rousing clarity.

Bottom line — if you want to write, you can make time for it. You just need a system. Take it from the gal who has published this newsletter weekly, without fail, for the last two years. 

You can absolutely do it. I believe in you.

Cheers! 🍻

-Kristin

P.S. — I don’t just write Drunk Business Advice — I bring it to life on stage. And I’d love to speak at your next event. Hit reply or click here to learn more.