Have you ever come up with a blog post idea when the farthest thing from your mind at the moment was blogging?
If you haven’t started blogging, you’ll find that once you start, you’ll get ideas when you least expect them.
You could be in a restaurant hanging out with friends when you randomly think of a post topic your blog audience would enjoy. Or you could be driving around town doing some errands when inspiration strikes. For some business bloggers, they get their best ideas while exercising. For me, the moments right after I wake up seem to be when my subconscious works in overdrive and gives me multiple blog post ideas.
The subconscious is a weird animal. It likes to give us good ideas at the weirdest moments. It’s almost like if you’re not focusing on blogging, you get the best ideas.
Ever heard of writer’s block? I’ll often turn on my laptop and prepare to write, but my mind is blank. I can’t think of anything to write. However, just a couple minutes ago while watching TV or reading a magazine, I had some good ideas. It’s too bad I can’t remember any of them.
Take Advantage of Those Moments of Inspiration
To prevent the above event from happening, I started carrying 3×5 index cards and a pen with me wherever I go. Whenever I unexpectedly get an idea, I immediately write it down so I don’t forget it. While driving, I bring a small voice recorder because it’s hard (and unsafe) to write while driving.
You don’t have to be low tech like me. Use your favorite PDA if you have one. PDAs make great idea capturing tools.
This idea capturing process has helped me overcome writer’s block. By the time I sit down to write my next blog post, I already have some ideas to work with.
By harnessing my fickle yet creative subconscious, blogging has been much easier for me. I think this is because much of the difficultly in blogging is coming up with enough blog post topics.
Over to You
How do you capture your ideas? When does your subconscious give you ideas unexpectedly?
About Dee Barizo
Since I always carry my iPhone with me, I can capture any sort of idea anytime—most of us know that inspiration strikes at the weirdest moments.
So ideas aren’t the problem for me—it’s rather getting myself to write though I really enjoy it once I’m “in the flow”. I need to work on making writing a habit instead of browsing around and wasting time :-)
Hi! This post is absolutely correct for some contexts.. I recenlty had an encounter of this type. I had never expected that I will blog about terror attack on Mumbai. But the fateful night of the 26th of November 2008 left such a mark in my mind that I had to do what I ever had never thought about.
You said rightly – Inspiration comes from quarters your never expected from.
Julian Schrader, great example. Thanks for sharing.
I totally understand about procrastinating in writing. But I think you got the right solution: making writing a habit. Realize that most days you’ll have resistance to writing. However, once you get started with the first couple of words, you’ll get “in the flow”. The hard part is always just getting started.
Deepak K Pandey, unexpected events can definitely be sources of inspiration for blog posts. It’s unfortunate that some of those events are tragedies. I hope the fight against terrorism improves over there at India.