Do you have a blog up your sleeve, Simon?

Our esteemed editor here at Blokes on the Blog (a woman, obviously!) put out a call recently. This blog is the response – because it occurred to me that ‘inspiration on demand’ is a handy trick to master, if you can.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that working with The Muses isn’t the best way to go: all I’m suggesting here is that there are a few tools-and-tricks that might help to allow them to come calling more often.

I write this, I should add, as an ‘informed amateur’. This is something I’ve read about as a really handy addition to what I do for a living but it’s not something that’s the main core of my expertise. In short, I’m barely a step up from the wiki-trainers I complain about in other blogs – so feel free to pour scorn and/or ignore me. In short, Your Mileage May Vary.

I offer these tools – with no guarantee – on the basis of ‘what has worked for me’. Here we go.

Never get to this point, the point where you need to create on demand

Obviously the fundamentally best way to avoid having to create on demand is to have things pre-prepared, just in case. (With an eclectic brief such as on Blokes, this is relatively much easier, given that one can write about almost anything!). I often cite an idea to people on my Time Management courses that ‘down time and dead time are different’. ‘Down time’ is used for re-charging your batteries and shouldn’t be curtailed, obviously, but ‘dead time’ should be shot – because there’s really no excuse for dead time in today’s world.

Why?

Because it’s more or less impossible to ever find yourself in a situation when you can’t make at least a little progress towards a blog (or something else). Even if you’re driving a car you can often at least come up with ideas, thoughts and suggestions – and with today’s technology there’s no need, ever, to lose those ideas.

Mobile phones, for example, will record you talking to yourself to save your gems of genius.

Train journeys are the obvious example. You can’t practice (and shouldn’t write) your presentations on the journey to your business meeting, so why not do something more constructive? My most cited entry on BlokesOTB was drafted and edited on a journey up the east coast rail line between Newcastle and Edinburgh (and yes, I had time to enjoy the stunning scenery and eat the free food as well!)

My daughters are past masters of this – Post-It notes adorn walls as they jot down an idea they’ve had while working on something else. According to the experts this has an additional advantage too, in that it gets that idea out of their heads, so that they can continue to concentrate upon what they’re supposed to be concentrating on when the inspirational thought or idea hits them.

Use a tickler file

I’ve got a file with half a dozen half-finished articles in it. Sometimes all I’ve got is a paragraph or a quote but other times I’ve got a hundred words. I work on it when I’m too knackered to do anything else.

I call on these half-finished articles to save me time when I really don’t have any inspiration.

The way I keep these ideas organised, by the way is using a MindMap. I use the excellent (and free) Xmind software to do it on my computer. That way related articles are kept together on a branch of the MindMap and I can enter the articles themselves as hyperlinks in the Xmind file so that I can open them immediately. I know it sounds silly, but believe me it’s massively useful for me. Once you’ve got the hang of MindMaps in general and Xmind in particular it’s a really efficient way of working on things like this. (YMMV!)

What this structure allows me to do is have instant access to related articles and so on, so that I can keep a bigger picture in my mind and, for example, copy/paste one article into another if they’re both struggling… or anything else I like.

The other beauty of the tickler file, for me, is that it allows me to hang on to ideas which were remarkably current, but whose time has passed – in other words, articles where I missed the boat.

Let me give you an example.

I work as a presentation skills trainer and as such it’s often a good idea for me to comment on speeches in, say, party conferences. Inevitably I’m busy (Murphy’s Law) and can’t get the article out in time. So rather than just dump it, I put it in a tickle-file and hang on to it. The new party conference season is starting in the UK as I type this, and guess what, I’ve already got three part-written blog entries from last year. It’ll take me less effort this year to write something because I’ve got something from last year ready.

It doesn’t have to be seasonal things, of course – branches on my MindMap are simply concepts – such as ‘weddings’ or ‘cockups’.

Go with Nike and ‘Just Do It’ – or burn it

Just write. It doesn’t matter what rubbish you write in the first draft. Let it be a hopeless stream of consciousness if it has to be! The fact is, it’s easier to modify than to create – so once you’ve created something, no matter how bad it may be you can always work on it.

Remember, if all else fails you can dump it after you’ve re-read it. You don’t suppose Beethoven wrote amazing stuff first time, do you? Nope. I’m sure that, like everyone else he wrote some rubbish. (In fact I know he did, because my wife’s seen the content of some of his notebooks).

Your bad stuff can be your little secret. Show the world only what you’re happy with. Remembering that means you don’t have the excuse of not writing: “Oh, it’ll be rubbish; I’d be ashamed”. If it’s rubbish, no one need see it, so you can’t be ashamed of it!

Summary

So that’s it. Your mileage may vary and I’m sure you’ve all got different (and possibly better!) ideas, but these are the tools I’ve developed. If you like ‘em use ‘em. If you don’t, don’t!

Simon Raybould is one of the country's most widely read and regarded providers of voice and presentation skills training.