This is the second article I've written on freewriting (also called rapidwriting). Why am I doing it? Because I want anyone who has to write a proposal, or other kind of business or personal communication, to use this tool/technique and realize just how valuable it is. Most people simply don't get it.
For those of you who don't know, freewriting is taking a topic, or an issue, or a situation and writing about it for a limited period of time without stopping. I'll usually do at least ten minutes. You can go longer or shorter, but don't stop. Here's what I just did.
I set my office timer for ten minutes and then wrote like mad. Much of what's in this article comes out of that ten minutes.
One of the major reasons I use freewriting is that it gets me in the groove. Let me explain.
I've been dealing with work-related projects this morning. It's involved some research, some checking of web sites, a little writing. I'm reasonably focused so I've accomplished much of what I intended. My next task? To write this article. By putting ten minutes on the timer and forcing myself to only think about the topic at hand, I gave myself a huge burst of concentrated energy. In ten minutes I came up with 525 words. That's a lot. Is it all going to be good stuff? Probably not. But in sorting out the wheat from the chaff there are going to be some gems.
It's actually a kind of holistic writing, where nothing is barred and everything is accepted and put on the table to be examined. It's OK to be critical. It's not like brainstorming where you don't judge or censor what you've written. With freewriting anything goes, no matter what. That's why the technique is so valuable. It gets your mind thinking in tangential ways - so that every part of it is working on the topic.
You can freewrite anywhere, any time. All you need is a timer, plus pen, paper, computer. I love it because it lets me flow without having to consider whether I'm right or wrong. I can put down ideas that I know are not going to work, with impunity. Why is that important? Because something may still come out of it. Idea fragments pop up in your mind and you take those fragments and see if they can become part of a whole, or at least lead you somewhere.
I use freewriting - sometimes to get clear, sometimes to get new ideas, always to get the brain to focus on a particular area. That's why the time limit is so effective. You don't have a chance to be distracted. Sometimes you do run out of ideas before time's up. That's OK too. Just read through what you've got, keep the valuable bits and discard the rest.
Why don't more people use this technique? Frankly, I don't think a lot of us are aware of it. So first you have you know about it, and second, you have to use it. It's another tool in your arsenal like mind mapping and it's well worth trying. Here's one final piece of advice. If you're stuck, or you're experiencing some kind of mental block, the technique that might open things up for you is freewriting.
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