There is a small exercise that I do every morning to become a better writer (atm I am average at best).
Freewriting.
This technique is about getting into a flow state while writing. How do you achieve that?
Simple: You start writing and type every thought that goes through your mind for a time period of 10 or 15 minutes. Try to keep typing even if you feel like editing the text or pausing and reflecting on your output. We want to avoid this, as it often blocks your best and most creative ideas.
Instead, you should let your raw and innermost thoughts come to the surface. Of course, you will often lose your train of thought or sometimes not even know what you should write about. Still, keep writing, even if you are just typing nonsense or blabbering.
Sooner or later, new ideas will pop up in your head.
In most cases, freewriting does not produce content that you can immediately publish. It’s more of an exercise to connect you with your creative side. If you use this exercise to create content for publication, I recommend editing it a few hours after freewriting, once you’ve gained some distance from the text. Writing and editing should never take place in the same session as they require different modes of thinking.
In particular, your creativity gets stifled when you’re in editing mode. I now also use freewriting when I write about a topic for my blog or for Twitter. In the past, I always researched first before I started writing.
Today, I write freely from the heart first and research afterward if I need to fact-check or if there are gaps in my knowledge. The major difference now is that I write much more personal texts containing personal analogies based on my own life experiences.
So, if you have 10 minutes, why not try freewriting today? Open a document on your computer or take a piece of paper and just start writing. I’m curious to hear about your experiences with this technique!