Overcoming Creative Blocks

• Quantity and quality are not opposing forces: One can enhance the other.
• Switch between quality and quantity modes: When stuck on quality, switch to quantity.
• Quantity as practice: Produce a large volume of work to train your skills and generate new ideas.
• Distill and apply: Compress the knowledge gained from quantity work and apply it back to refine quality.
• Early detection: Switch to quantity mode at the first sign of slowing down or approaching a block.

Action Plan:

1. When facing a creative block in writing, switch to quantity mode. For example, write a large number of headlines or free-write on the topic.
2. Extract key insights from the quantity work.
3. Apply those insights back to the main piece of writing to overcome the block.