Do you ever get stuck writing something at work? You are not alone. Many people sometimes struggle with a document, a presentation, or even an email.
I know VPs and directors who get stuck. Also engineers, designers, consultants, salesfolk, and professional communicators of various kinds.
Here are some reasons why a piece of writing might be hard. Do any seem familiar?
You’re communicating difficult ideas or complex relationships.
The topic is a new area (as when your boss has asked for a report on a promising new area, or you have decided to do a presentation on a new subject).
The form of the message is new, for example if you are writing a formal report for the first time, or trying an Amazon-style “mock press release”, or you’ve been asked to do a keynote speech*.
You don’t know the audience, or it’s a very mixed audience, or the audience is hostile to your message.
Writing is just hard work, and other things are suddenly more appealing (doing expenses, tidying the desk … how productive you can be when you’re avoiding writing).
*Planned speaking counts as “writing”
This piece helps you work through blocks. But that still requires effort. You might wonder if the effort is worth it:
When writing is that hard, should we ask someone or something to write it for us? I’d say no. When writing hard, it’s often because some decision or action depends on it, and so you care about getting it right. If you’re the one with the message to bring, you are the one who can communicate it best. No-one can do that for you as well (though others can help you think through it once you have the shape of a message).
Should we just have meetings instead of writing? It depends on the situation. For some things, you can’t get out of writing anyway: a formal report or a presentation to compose (I’d still call that “writing”, as a planned piece of communication). For other situations, you might feel that the effort of writing the thing is more than just having a quick meeting. But if it’s a complex decision, it’s probably still worth working through in writing to come up with a recommendation and its rationale.
Blocks at different stages
“Writers’ block” is a strange term, because it implies a single condition, with a single cause. But writers get blocked in different ways before starting, when wrestling ideas, and almost at any time until a draft is really polished. (Remember also that blocks can happen due to challenges with audience or form or topic, and they can happen to all sorts of writers.)
As blocks happen in such varied situations, we shouldn’t look for one remedy for all of them. If you have a severe sore throat, a doctor may recommend:
A specialist examination, or;
Antibiotics for tonsillitis, or;
No smoking, or;
No singing for a month.
Let’s look at remedies for different types of block according to the stage you’re at.
Stage One: You’re putting off writing, or you just can’t get into it.
You probably need to create space, mentally and physically. Try some or all of these:
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