How to Overcome Writer's Block and Produce High-Quality Content Consistently

My creative process has matured through all types of trial and error.

What was once spontaneity and randomness is honing in, through process. There are so many parts and pieces to having a good creative process that keeps you consistent in publishing.

• You have no ideas, and don't know what to create...
• Then you have ideas, but no execution.
• Then you have execution, but it's hard to stay consistent. Or it's hard to publish.
• Then you have execution, and publish but you don't love the quality.
• Then you run out of ideas and get bored.

And the list goes on and on.

I wanted to share a bit about how and why process is so important to creativity and content strategy.

I want to help you see that the process of creating and publishing content is not so overwhelming. That, we don't have to do it all of the time, and take some pressure away.

Weirdly, I think this process is going to give you more time, not less.

So, you can think of this as a masterclass on content publishing without struggle. And I'm going to get right to the point.  

The key insight: Break up your creative process into separate chunks.

When you're just getting started publishing, everything is new and difficult. You're working through many pieces of production at one time. You're ideating, drafting, editing, publishing, and all of the tiny details that make up each of these categories.

This is a LOT to take on all at once.

Think about it; You're doing multiple hard things right in a row... and you're expecting yourself to move through each of these phases without getting stuck or blocked. Every piece of your process could be a moment that stops you from publishing.

So, is it any wonder you aren't consistent in publishing when you're trying to do all of these difficult steps ALL at the same time?

Instead, what I've learned is that you can separate them out into multiple, smaller working blocks. Spend smaller chunks of time on manageable pieces of the work, rather than an "all-in-one-go-effort." All-in-one-go = super effort that's hard to maintain or complete. When I used to do this, I would lose steam. I would ideate but not write or I would write but not edit. Or, worst of all, I would write, edit and then not publish.

The Benefits of Having a Workflow

When you turn your creative process into a workflow, you break up your creative projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. This allows you to focus on one part of the process at a time, without feeling overwhelmed by the entire project. By doing so, you can experience the following benefits:

1. Makes the Process of Creating Content Less Overwhelming: Breaking down your creative process into smaller tasks can help make the overall process of creating content feel less daunting.

2. Inspires You to Create Better Content: By focusing on individual tasks and taking the time to produce high-quality work, you can create better content that is more beneficial to your audience.

3. Helps You Keep Track of Ideas Over Time: With a workflow, you can better manage the ideas you have over time, without feeling like you have to do everything at once.

4. Takes Some of the Pressure Off of Creating Content: By separating out your creative process into individual tasks, you can take some of the pressure off of yourself and work on each task at your own pace.

5. Gives You Time to Think: With a workflow, you can spend more time thinking about each task and developing more information to add, better information to include, and research to support your ideas.

6. Helps You Develop a System That Makes Content Creation Easier: Over time, your workflow will help you develop a system that makes content creation faster and easier through the processes and templates you create.

Designing a workflow for your creativity will help you master the process, and become consistent.

For example, with writing, I follow roughly this process:

• Ideation: Spend time brainstorming ideas and topics for your content.
• Research: Once you've come up with an idea or topic, research it thoroughly to ensure you have all the information you need to create a comprehensive piece of content.
• Outline: Create an outline of your content, breaking it down into sections or subsections and ensuring that each section flows logically from one to the next.
• Draft: Use your outline to write a first draft of your content, focusing on getting your ideas down on paper without worrying too much about grammar or structure.
• Edit: Once you've finished your draft, spend time editing and revising it to ensure it is well-written, easy to read, and free of errors.
• Publish: Once you're happy with your final draft, hit the "publish" button and share your content with the world.

I also delegate parts of this process when I'm able to, so this is not me typically doing all of the heavy lifting.

Giving your creative projects space to breathe as you work through each component has many benefits. Here are just a few of them:

Reduce the amount of time you spend per chunk.

Reducing the amount of time, and perceived effort that I need to spend on any given work. I might only take 5-25 minutes on one of these chunks of the workflow.

Work on multiple ideas at once

Another benefit is that you can work on multiple posts simultaneously. It's actually easier to work on multiple posts at once because each can be in a different stage.

You want to be constantly cooking on each part of this process: sometimes you’re editing, then you’re ideating, drafting, and publishing.

Give your ideas time and space to grow

When you nurture a post along over time, rather than all-at-once, you give it space to breathe and turn into what it wants to be.

Sure, sometimes you might write a perfect post all in one go in 30 minutes, but it's more likely that as you allow a post to develop, new creative insights are added to the post over time. By giving myself more space to create, you allow for the idea to have space to breathe and develop. You have more time for research, to let new ideas reach you, or to have new insights develop.

Editing and publishing are very different than inspiration and production.

Personally, I work with people on the process of editing and publishing because they are distinctly different parts of the creative process. I share this to help highlight how we have to use many different hats to consistently publish; we might play both writer and editor, director and marketer.

The simplest organizational method? Creating a Kanban

You can turn your whole process into a simple Kanban, with each stage of the process represented by a column on a board.

You can use this board to keep track of your progress, move tasks from one column to the next as you complete them, and ensure that you're constantly working on each part of the process.

My suggestion? Create your workflow.

Turning your creative process into a workflow can help you overcome writer's block, produce high-quality content consistently, and stay motivated throughout the creative process.

By breaking down your creative projects into smaller tasks, you can make the process less overwhelming, keep track of your ideas over time, and develop a system that makes content creation faster and easier.

Let me know how this all goes for you! Much love.