Using freewriting in business

Business is full of advice on how to -ize your work life: optimize your time, maximize your opportunities, incentivize yourself to do things. But as anyone who writes professionally can tell you, we can’t always write on command. We rarely feel like incentivizing ourselves to optimize our writing time, maximize our opportunity to string words together, and write content quickly, efficiently—robotically. When it comes to communicating, we want to use our own voices, freely.

That’s why so many writers use freewriting. It’s a process that creative writers use—and freewriting works brilliantly in business. To freewrite, just start with a “prompt”—a word, phrase, or title that suggests a subject. Then set a timer for 5 minutes. Write—by hand—on that topic, freely, expansively, without stopping. Repeat several times, throughout the day. You’ll discover that ironically, giving up control gives you more control over your content.