While creativity is indeed a bottomless resource, available to all, let’s not pretend that it’s always easy to access. In fact, it can be really damn hard at times. 

Some days, you just stare at a blank page or white field in your design software or empty strategy template with boredom and/or dread and/or disgust. You’re tempted to shut your laptop and walk directly into the nearest wooded area to live out your days amongst the local flora and fauna. You will sleep in a mud hovel and eat berries and spend most of the day looking at whatever's going on in the sky at present. An enterprising bird will help you change your name, and a passing forest witch will cancel your credit cards for you for a very reasonable fee of acorns and three locks of your hair, which has grown to your waist. You will be free—free! FREE, DO YOU HEAR?! No one will ever again ask you to put one of your precious creative ideas into a frigid, unfeeling software program. YOU’RE FREEEEEEEE!

::laughs maniacally, jumps in a lake, marries an otter::

Ahem. Anyway. Doesn’t that kind of sound amazing instead of, you know, having a Monday?

We have lots of other articles with tips on strengthening your creative practice or defeating creative blocks, but this isn’t one of them. This article is for those days when you simply cannot but you also simply must, and how to eke through those days by doing the bare minimum to move forward. We’re gonna get you through your next flee-to-the-wilderness moment without embarrassing yourself or getting fired. 

And we’ll do that with teensy-tiny micro-tips for unsticking yourself in a moment of creative freeze. These tips will require minimum effort and time, and no preparation or follow up. Maybe you can think of them as your creativity emergency button, and wouldn’t we all like one of those? 

So let's go underperform together and put off our sylvan relocation for at least 24 hours.

Micro-tip 1: Don’t do it today

We’re starting off strong: Just…don’t do it. Or rather, don’t do it right now. Don’t do it before lunch. Don’t do it today or this week. 

The success of this tip is of course dependent on when the thing actually needs to get done, and maybe you don’t have the luxury of delaying a moment longer. But if you can delay it? Great. Wait til later, wait til tomorrow, because you very well just might feel entirely different when whatever the creative task is cycles back to the top of your to-do list. 

Humans make the mistake all the time of believing that our feeling-states are permanent or at least predictable. We feel X about Y right now, so of course we’ll still feel X about Y tomorrow! But actually feelings are sorta like tides; they come in without bidding, but they also, inevitably, go out. 

So, if you can simply not do the thing right now, don’t. But if you apply this tip repeatedly and it doesn’t help, you might need to move on to tip number two…

Micro-tip 2: Ask someone else

A classic twist on “Don’t do it”: Get someone else to do it. Kidding! (Kinda.)

Ok, but seriously, this isn’t the jerk move it might appear to be at first. Yes, some of us may be in positions to delegate work, and so asking someone else to do it instead is indeed a strategy. But in a less direct way, just soliciting the opinions of your peers, friends, and people you trust is a great way to loosen the knot of your thoughts and lurch into action. Think of it like cracking open a window in a stifling hot room—a cool breeze is a big relief! 

Easy questions are “What would you do?” or “How would you approach this?” Their answers might inspire you, give you a concrete starting point, or push you in a clear direction because you disagree with what they’ve said. 

Working solo or just annoyed with everyone in your life today? There’s someone else you can turn to…

Micro-tip 3: Ask a robot

Ok, I know that computers and LLMs aren’t exactly robots, but let’s not get caught up in semantics when we’re just trying to get something done so we can go drink a tea in silence in front of a blank white wall and think about our choices. 

This is honest to god how I use ChatGPT when I’m stuck: I ask it what it would do, and then I get so angry at its wrong responses that I immediately have at least the beginnings of my own answer. 

Me: “What tone of voice does [audience] resonate most with?” ChatGPT: “[Audience] responds best to communications that exude authority and confidence.”

Me: “What?! No, they absolutely do not! They feel alone in their problems and want to know that someone understands them!” 

Oh. Didn’t realize that I already had that belief buried in my brain somewhere! 

But seriously, there are so, so many of these large language models (LLMs) and AI wizards everywhere now, from LinkedIn to Notion to Google Docs and Sheets. I’m giving you the permission to click the stupid little suggestion buttons! Let them do a thing for you! Seldom, in my experience, will they generate a legit answer or direction. But often, it’s just enough to get over the tyranny of the blank page and reveal your own idea to you by virtue of resistance, amplification, opposition, or friction. It’s like pushing off the side of the pool to swim to the other side vs. starting by treading water in the center. 

So next time you need to make a social post and you’d rather pull your own eyelashes out, let the AI LinkedIn Fairy do it for you…and then completely rewrite it in a fit of motivated rage at how little it sounds like you.

Micro-tip 4: Read a how-to article

I’m not saying you don’t already know how to write a snappy display ad or design a landing page or craft a brand purpose. All I’m saying is that right now you really can’t, for whatever reason, and you need to manufacture the will to do so. 

If you Google “how to [do the thing you need to do]” there will be other people on the internet telling you how to do it. Those other people may have great ideas, processes, or methodologies for getting that thing done and give you a little kickstart. But, more likely, these articles were written for non-expert practitioners, and they break the task down into much smaller, more manageable, and more concrete steps than you’re used to as someone who does this creative work day in and day out. 

Being reminded of these incremental steps can break mental gridlock and get you started. “Design a landing page” might make you feel totally burned out and itching for your wilderness life with your otter spouse, but “Step 1: Choose a color palette” is perhaps relievingly doable. Then tackle Step 2, according to whatever poorly illustrated WikiHow you’ve found. It’s all about momentum!  

Micro-tip 5: Do a bad job 

Can’t write a blog post? Can’t come up with a campaign idea? Taglines eluding you? 

Do them badly on purpose. 

We’ve written about the virtues of messy brainstorming before, but this tip invites you to take it to another level. Give yourself the freedom and permission to do whatever it is you need to do as absolutely shittily as possible. Be snarky. Spell everything wrong. Explain how useless this project is. Have no structure. Make it a joke. Put a GIF of a flying hot dog giving the middle finger in the middle of the page. Hide 3 paragraphs of your next romantasy novel in the strategy. Whatever! Just so long as it’s not actually meeting the brief.

After you do this, you might have to walk away for a few hours or a day and then come back with fresh eyes and energy (see Micro-tip 1). But in this process, you will have dispelled the negative energy you were feeling, and that is actually what’s behind the creative block! 

Over to you

When do you most feel the Call of the Wild? How do you resist? Share your own troubles and techniques in the comments or reply to this email!

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Kumbaya,Shannon & Kevan