What's your favorite way of stimulating your creative juices? How do you inspire yourself?
I don't usually get up at 2 a.m. and work, but when work's creative it's more like play, so why not? Here's two good posts to read and then I'll tell you why these two writers, Sean D'Souza and John Jantsch, are actually dancing the Tango together…
- How to Succeed at Content Marketing Even if Your Content Skills Suck by Sean D'Souza. Sean is guest posting over at Copyblogger and makes a great point of stressing regularity and reliability. He says your content writing skills can't get better if you're not writing often, and if readers don't hear from you with frequency, they'll just 'change the channel, and go elsewhere. You've got to publish, stay on target with your messages, and keep readers informed.
- Are You Right Brain Dead? asks John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. Small business professionals often get so wrapped up in running a business, using their left brains for managing, organizing, and getting things done, that they neglect to stimulate their creative brains. Right brain functioning is essential to customer service, product enhancements, and in general finding creative solutions.
John says, "If, as a marketer, the creative side of your thinking gets shut down you can find it difficult to create engaging blog posts, elegant customer service solutions and innovative product enhancements."
So true. Here's what happens: It's Friday so you run around checking to see if your to-do lists are on track. You may even spend the weekend catching up with left over tasks.
Getting things done is so left-brain. And once that left-brain energy gets plugged in, it's hard to shut it down. While that's a good thing for task accomplishments, it's not the best way to stay creative and improve your writing skills. (And it's not as much fun, I think!)
Post #1 by Sean D'Souza is all about sticking to a schedule with your content marketing tasks.
Post #2 by John Jantsch is all about getting out of the office or doing things to stimulate your creative juices.
My post says both are essential to running a business and succeeding with your content marketing tango. A posting or writing schedule will keep you from going stale and losing readers who expect to hear from you. A variety of non-task activities will keep the creative juices flowing.
Here's my list of favorite mojo generating activities that usually get me into super-creative content writing gear (what's yours?)
- Walk down to the Lake and enjoy the herons and sunshine
- Walk/jog over to the Plaza past the Cathedral
- Take my Kindle over to the Pier and read a book
- Work out, either at home or at gym
- Sit still and breathe for at least 10 minutes
- Listen to music
- Float in backyard pool
- Walk up the mountain a ways
- Go to a movie
- Stretch on Yoga mat for 10 minutes
- Play some tennis
- Play with Huey and Dewey, our two kitties
After only 10-20 minutes of non-task related activities, I find I usually come up with either a solution to a problem, or a bright idea. Never fails. What's your favorite way of staying creative?
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