Make a List!

Stumped on what to write today? Need a jumpstart?

Why not try making a list?

Try something that helps me when I am stumped and struggling with a writer’s block. Grab your pen and paper. Make a list!

Don’t think about writing. Don’t think about how the content of your article will come together. Just grab a cup of tea, settle in for a bit and start writing out a list.

Just start writing down different words associated with the subject you want to write about and in most cases, when you finish this exercise, you have quite a bit of information that you hadn’t considered before. Best of all, you will probably have plenty to write about.

How do you do this?

1. Decide on your topic.
2. Start jotting down a list of things you could include.
3. Review the list, other ideas will pop into your head. Jot them down.
4. Dump all of the things that cross your mind into your list.
5. Don’t worry about pulling it all together. Instead, just brainstorm.

What do you list?

1. List steps.
2. List things you need to know.
3. List things your reader would be interested in knowing.
4. List related words or topics.
5. List a timeline.
6. List terms.
(Yep! This was a list–keep listing things that you can list.)

It doesn’t matter if some of them don’t make sense — write them down anyway. As you look back over the list, those seemingly unfitting ideas might launch into other related ideas that you CAN use.

Write down everything you can think of, and then decide what you can use. You’ll almost always find 10-15 new ideas to write about — which can turn into a lot more content.