Write it bad. Real bad.

Sometimes, you just gotta get out of your shell. As a creative, we're expected to be fresh and different and unique and resonant... all the time. It's exhausting.

There are many ways I've stumbled across to overcome this. Things like going to a different location (other than your desk), handwriting (or hand-drawing) rather than using the computer. Little things like these can make a surprising impact on what you create. They'll help you get out of the proverbial box.

The one I haven't seen written down anywhere is doing Bad Writing. You know the stuff. Cringe worthy horrors of adjective-laden, passive-voiced drivel. My technique is to sit down and purposefully write stuff that would never, ever make it to my portfolio. Throw in some needlessly poor grammar, too (see the headline of this post).

While you're at it, set your inner critic free and rip it to pieces for not being bad enough.

If you're a designer, throw color theory out the window, mix 72 different fonts, go wild with visuals that make you want to poke your eyes out.

I have a theory that this stuff sometimes gets bottled up in your system, blocking access to the golden harp-strumming prose and design that you need to make a living.

So open the tap. Let it flow. Write the worst possible stuff you can come up with. Often times after doing that, I walk away and come back. And find that towards the end of my flood of atrocities, there's the nugget of something good.