Why you need to stop researching and start writing

Author : Rob Ashton

Posted : 14 / 05 / 15

There’s no getting away from it: research is addictive. And there’s a good reason for that – we’re all hard-wired to search.

It’s a survival mechanism, programmed into us by evolution. As hunter-gatherers on the savannah, we needed something that would shake us from our slumber; that would make us get off our fur-clad backsides and look for food or shelter. As you need both to live, this was undeniably a positive trait. And so those ancestors who happened to get a kick out of finding things survived, while those who could take or leave the wildebeest-tracking or shelter-finding starved or risked attack at dawn. As a result, we all became programmed to look.

That kick you get when you find something new is actually a surge in the production of the feel-good hormone dopamine. And where once it was useful, these days it can actually be a real handicap.

That’s because we get a dopamine rush not just from finding food or shelter, but from finding information. And information is everywhere. We don’t even need to find it: it finds us. In today’s always-on, smartphone-dominated world, it can sometimes feel like information hunts or even haunts us.

But we still have our original programming in place. We still want information. And our tech-connected world provides it in spades. We look, we find, we feel good (for a moment, at least), and we look for more. This positive feedback loop is a recipe for addiction. And addicts are what millions of us are.

Dopamine compresses time. It makes an hour seem like a few minutes. (Time really does fly when you’re having fun.) As Clay Johnson says in his book, The Information Diet, ‘A quick check of email when we get home can often end up in evenings entirely lost to LCD screens’. It actually takes energy to avoid information, because resisting the urge to search means overcoming millions of years of evolution. And when information is all around us, avoiding it can be exhausting.

And so we come to writing – or, more specifically, not writing, because we’re still researching. When you’ve been given free licence to go hunting for facts, it’s going to be hard to stop – especially if you’re an information junkie already.

If you’re researching a report, every new little nugget of data, every intriguing fact, gives you a (perhaps subconscious) frisson of pleasure and spurs you on to look for more.

Research is also a safe place. As long as you’re looking, your report is still perfect. As long as you’re still searching, you don’t have to face the terrifying prospect of being crippled by writer’s block. In the end, research itself can become another displacement activity. At some point, there will come a time when you have to stop researching and start writing.

What you need to do to overcome this is start to stack the odds in your favour again. So here are five ways to do exactly that:

1. Set a time limit on your research

A project without a deadline is a hobby. If it is a hobby, then great. But if you’re being paid to find information, then at some point you’re going to have to report back. Staying in research mode forever is pointless, so set a time limit. Put a date in your calendar or – for more regular, smaller projects – give yourself just a day or two, or even just a few hours. Then start writing.

2. Use placeholders in what you write

It can actually be profitable to write with small gaps in your knowledge. I wrote this piece in 45 minutes, but I was only able to do that because I didn’t allow myself time to look up the name of the author of the book I mentioned above. Instead, I just wrote ‘[insert name of author]’ and carried on writing. You can come back and fill in the gaps later.

3. Read offline

The internet is one giant warren of research rabbit holes that lead you to distracting websites (and usually, I find, to social media or endless news sites). It’s all too easy to disappear down one while fact-finding, and to be gone for hours. Apps like Pocket and Evernote overcome this. Pocket, for example, lets you send information (articles, videos and images) to an app that you read offline (on any platform), in a layout that looks more like a book and without distracting menus. It also lets you tag the items you add to it, as does Evernote. It’s a real boon to effective research.

4. Get some sleep

Burning the midnight oil could actually be working against you. It takes immense willpower to stay super-focused and – ultimately – to stop researching. And your brain needs to be on top form in order to connect ideas and get writing. No amount of coffee will push ideas quickly enough around a brain fogged by tiredness.

5. Practise information hygiene

Wean yourself off your information addiction by limiting how much information can chase you. Every smartphone or computer notification is a distraction that you need energy to ignore. (The author Kathy Sierra calls them cognitive leaks.) If you give in to them, you’ll reinforce your addiction to research. If you don’t, you’ll leach away energy – energy that would be much better spent writing.

I’ve got a confession: I’m an information addict too. I love that dopamine rush. In fact, one of life’s more old-school pleasures for me is to visit a university library. I love the heady aroma of centuries of accumulated knowledge.

But that’s generally not why you research. You do it not just to discover, but to share. And if you don’t share it, no one will ever know that you discovered it in the first place. So, stop researching, and start writing.

Image credit: Pet Greens Live Catnip