I once read about an author who would begin every day by going for a three-and-a-half-mile walk to clear his head. He would then reread what he had written the day before to refresh his memory. Then he would force himself to write until he reached his daily 2,000 words.
This was the strict routine that allowed Stephen King to publish over 80 books in the last 40 years. No matter how creative or uncreative King was feeling that particular day, he forced himself to sit down and produce 2,000 words.
Every. Single. Day.
Some days, those 2,000 words were just useless nonsense. Other days, he would end up writing the storylines of IT, Carrie, or The Shining.
When we have important work to do, oftentimes the hardest part is just getting started. There have been several times where I have a work project to get done and I’ve procrastinated until the very last minute. I’ve been putting it off because ‘the creative juices just weren’t flowing’. But now, even though the juices still aren’t flowing, I have to do it or I will have an upset client and I won’t get paid. So I force myself to sit down, turn on the computer, open up the project, and voila: hours have passed by, my project is done, I didn’t even realize it.
The easiest way to get started on a difficult task is just that: just get started.
Just do something.
When you have an essay to write and you have absolutely no clue where to start, just sit down, open up Microsoft Word, and start writing. It doesn’t even have to be about anything relevant. The act of preparing to write will flip a switch in your mind, putting it into writing mode.
When you need to go to the gym for your daily exercise, but the couch feels so nice… just stand up, start packing your gym bag, hop in the car, and as soon as you walk through those gym doors, you’ll forget all about how you didn’t want to go in the first place. Then an hour later when you’re dripping in sweat, you’ll be thanking yourself for getting your ass off the couch. This exact scenario happens to me at least twice a week.
When we have work to do and we don’t do it, we just create more work for ourselves later.
So just get started. Just do something.
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