Never waste time trying to do something you just can't for the moment

I'm writing this article on Monday, and I'm probably gonna publish it on Friday. I'm back to writing 10 articles every Monday so I can have the rest of the week free, to sped my time doing other productive activities.

One thing I do throughout the week is think about ideas for articles that I can write at the beginning of the following week. Since I have 4 days at my disposal to do that, I can usually come up with decent ideas and I don't have to spend time doing that every Monday.

But once in a while, right before writing I realize that one of the ideas I came up with during those 4 days isn't that good, and I need to think of a new one. Sadly, finding ideas is often the hardest part when it comes to writing.

Thinking about a good topic to approach in an article can be really time consuming, and when you do that you often can't really do anything else. You're stuck in a thinking process that usually doesn't have the desired outcome, simply because ideas often appear out of nowhere and at random times, not when you want them to.

That's why spending time trying to think about what you should write next is usually useless, and it will lead to nothing.

Instead of doing that, you should just move onto the next task, and invest your time and attention into something that you can actually do.

For example, right before writing this article I was stuck trying to think of a good topic to approach, because the idea I had before wasn't good enough. I spent around 5 minutes trying to come up with something, and when I realized I couldn't, I just moved on and started writing an article for Medium, one that I already thought of in those 4 days.

Writing a completely different article for a different website helped me come up with the idea for this article. Besides that, I was productive and I didn't waste time doing nothing.

Writing can be really hard simply because you'll sometimes lack ideas. Spending hours and hours trying to come up with something decent to write about won't always help. It will simply be wasted time.

In order to avoid wasting time, stop trying to think about ideas and just do something different. If you have other things to do aside from writing, then focus on your next task. If you don't, then do something that relaxes you, like watching a movie.

Ideas often appear when you least expect it, and without a particular reason. Forcing the process is not always good, and investing your time into something different than thinking about what you should write about can be exactly what you need to get that idea you've been looking for.

Try to always use your time in a smart way, and don't get stuck in activities that won't result in something good.