How to Write with Your Right Brain: 5 Tips

One of the smartest things you can do to keep up with blog writing is to use your brain well. Use your right brain to tap into your creativity.

The third thing I do in the morning when I get up is write on one of my blogs. (First, brew a pot of Cafe de Olla; second, feed Huey and Dewey, our kitties.) When clients ask, “How do you find time to post on all your blogs?” it’s kind of a non-problem, since I’m fueled by coffee and love…!

One of my favorite posts is here, because two writers (John Jantsch and Sean D’Souza) who really understand content marketing explain this further in The Right Brain/Left Brain Tango: How to Get Your Creative Mojo Back.

Here are 5 tips for being more creative and productive with your writing tasks.

1. Write first before you open email or your list of things to do. Any writing task should have priority over other tasks in the morning. Why? Writing uses mostly your right brain, and you need clarity, without those little gnawing distractions.Beware the left brain that wants to spoil your creativity by reminding you of things “to-do.” When you first wake up, you’re functioning in your right brain. Use it immediately for improved creativity.
2. Before you go to bed and fall asleep, remind yourself which writing tasks you want to work on in the morning. Your right brain will think about them as you go to sleep, and probably as you wake up. As a result, you’ll wake up with those writing jobs in mind and can start right in on them – as soon as the coffee’s ready and the pets are fed.
3. Leave your desk relatively uncluttered when you stop working at night so that in the morning you can start writing without distractions. It helps to have a safe place to set your coffee, where the kitties won’t knock it over when they come to lie in front of your computer screen. (If you have dogs, you won’t understand this part, but I’m sure there’s similar arrangement for those little darlings.)

4. Give yourself a set length of time to work on a writing project and then stop. Taking a break after 60 to 90 minutes will allow you to see more clearly when you go back to the task. If you’re writing on your blog, you may only need 30-45 minutes or less.

5. Use your break away from writing to either get some exercise (ten minutes is all you’ll need to refresh your brain), or check your ‘to-do’ list for the day, then check your email. Be sure to set aside a time for this, otherwise, it’s easy to get caught up in email for the rest of the day and never get back to creative writing or doing research you need on the Web or in books. I recommend chunking tasks into 30-45 minute segments.

Now I know some of you aren’t “morning people.” But as a former psychologist who reads a lot about the brain, I suggest you may be misunderstanding yourself. You may have named yourself “not a morning person,” because you were trying to accomplish left brain tasks.

Why not try writing in the morning and see how that goes? If it doesn’t go well, then try setting aside time to write at night. What ever works, it will solve the problem of “finding enough time to write.” You don’t find time – it’s already there. You just have to use it well.