1 Critical Step to get That Document Done for Your Project
The purpose of this article is to discuss tips on how to get past writers block and get started on that critical project management communication or document that is due.
Communication is a project piece under the People segment which is in the LEAD domain in the Project Management MPM model.
Communication is a project piece under the People segment which is in the LEAD domain in the Project Management MPM model
In Business you Write Many Term Papers Each Year
A fourth-year student is stalled and stressed because a 20-page paper due in a day is not progressing and not flowing. Their response… don’t write anything. Their strategy? If it is not flowing, then stop typing. That is probably the worst thing you can do. You have to just start and keep on starting, every time you are stuck.
You may not be a student in University anymore, and you may not be writing term papers anymore, but as a manager managing projects, the field of project management demands communication and presentation of ideas, and those don’t always come easy.
You write many 20-page term papers throughout the year; they are just called other things. They are “business cases”, “charters”, “decision requests”, “alternatives comparisons”, “user guides”, “systems descriptions”, and sometimes “persuasive emails”, to name a few.
In Project Management frequent communications to many different stakeholders is essential
One of the critical items in your daily and weekly project management tasks is communications.
Written communications are required every day
Usually, communications are required every day and whenever needed to move the project along. Sometimes you start with a template; sometimes you are creating a template.
Whatever your method, you are formulating ideas for analysis, education, persuasion, or reference.
There are many audiences of project management materials, from executive stakeholders to project champions, to managers with resources, team members or vendors and a host of other eyes, and some you influence with your words that you will never meet.
Just write anyway
It can be intimidating to start writing
It can feel like the words just don’t want to flow, that others will view your writing as poor, that the arguments will be considered weakly structured; and so, the way around this? Write anyway.
Just start.
You May Start Many Times
And you may have to start many times, every time you get stuck. But you have to keep on writing.
Eventually the ideas begin to flow. Eventually the structure emerges.
There is a struggle going on in your mind that you can’t control subconsciously on the surface, but you can win tactically.
Manage that left hand side
Any resource of value in the field of writing tells you that when you are stuck, keep writing, because your left hand side of the brain, though limited, is very controlling and wants to direct the structures based on past experience, based on past fears and based on its limited ability to see patterns.
The left hand side doesn’t have a creative ability. It doesn’t make patterns.
The right hand side understands deep complicated patterns and creates simplicity and structure out of complexity and parts that don’t seem to relate. It starts from nothing and creates things that move and motivate people.
The quandary you are in as a human being is that while the right hand side formulates the elegant patterns, ideas and concepts that win you accolades and move ideas along, it must be expressed through the left hand side via speaking or writing, no matter how beautiful the thought.
Let the right hand write
In an ideal world your left hand side would be quiet while the right hand side created the beautiful and elegant ideas, and then these ideas would be handed off to the left hand side who would then just express them.
However, it never works that neatly. For as the left hand side begins to recognize the patterns it then begins to take over the creation of ideas as well because it is the dominant hemisphere.
Set a timer if that helps
It begins to create the ideas in your project management documents, in your English term papers. The left hand side will say “I know how to do this” and will literally take control from the right hand side and attempt to do the creating.
But it can’t, and it evaluates the result, brings up your own self-doubts, and all that old history of fears, tells you that you can’t do it and your system grinds to a halt.
What you have to do is “trick” the left hand side of the brain. You do this by writing. It can also work to set a timer to tell yourself you are just going to write for a certain amount of time.
When you write, even if it is unconnected, raw and unformulated, the right hand side eagerly drinks it up looking for patterns, but the left hand side becomes frustrated because it does not see familiar structure.
Write steadily then prune
The more you write steadily without stopping to criticize (because the right hand side does not comprehend criticism) the more your right hand side starts to see the beautiful, complicated patterns, and the more your left begins to give up.
It is the same technique used by Betty Edwards in “Drawing on the Right Hand Side of the Brain”. Give the brain something complicated, without an obvious or familiar pattern and the left hand side of the brain gives it up to the right hand side of the brain, who happily takes it on and creates what you need.
Once the writing is done, then the pruning takes place, and now the left hand and right hand side work more congenially and together drive to a successful conclusion.
Summary
If you are stuck in creating your project management materials, you have to ignore that feeling and just start; and start as many times as you need until your work is complete whether creating the draft or driving to a final document or other communication.
Just start and the ideas appear before you.
You need to start and keep starting because your job as a project manager is to communicate, present, influence, motivate and move your project along to success.
Action Steps / Apply This Knowledge
- Take 15 minutes whenever you have room in your schedule. Is there an email you’ve been procrastinating on? Take 15 minutes and begin writing ideas about the email you’ve been putting off. It doesn’t have to be perfect – you’re just writing.
Take the pressure off and write anything that comes to mind to do with that email – you can trim it down later.
After 15 minutes is over, read through what you’ve written. Do you see how you can trim the body of text down into a workable draft?
- Is there a project charter you need to start?
Outline it with a heading for each part of the charter. See this post for a refresher on the charter components.
Once you have the headings in a blank document, set a timer for 15 minutes and begin writing under each heading. It doesn’t have to be perfect – you’re just writing.
Take the pressure off and if you don’t know what to write in a section, skip it, and start writing in any section that inspires you with anything that comes to mind, and do not edit – you can trim it down later.
After 15 minutes is up, read through what you’ve written. Do you see how you can trim the body of text down into a workable draft or add to it?
- Write gibberish if you have to. Sometimes I have sat down to write and no ideas came, so I started typing “This is very frustrating. I cannot seem to get ideas to flow. Man, this sucks, what a waste of time …..” And I just keep typing whatever comes to mind, even if it is an internal discussion, and after a few words or paragraphs, better words start to flow and then I am on a roll. Try it.
- Prompt engineering guidance for AI GPTs such as chatGPT: “I’m a business leader managing a technology project and I need to write some critical emails and also work on the project charter and I’m having trouble getting started. What are some things I can do to get over writer’s block?”
Learn More to Do More
Business evolves through change initiatives otherwise known as projects. The key to managing these change initiatives so you have more time, and less stress is to use simple strategies and tools.
Check out the Learning Hub’s other Articles with Actionable Steps, organized with a busy leader in mind, by topic or main idea, and with some AI GPT (e.g. ChatGPT) prompt engineering suggestions under the Action steps: https://simplepmstrategies.com/learning-hub-index
LEAD – Just Start Writing
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