Don’t fall into this research trap

The strange thing about writer’s block is often it’s not writing that’s the problem at all. It’s thinking.

‘Thinking is to humans as swimming is to cats,’ the late psychologist Daniel Kahneman once argued. ‘They can do it, but they prefer not to.’

(Kahneman was no slouch as a thinker himself. He won a Nobel Prize for his work with Amos Tversky on – appropriately – how humans think.)
 

Rabbit holes

But thinking has become harder than ever since he wrote those words in 2011. And ironically, it’s our access to ever more knowledge that’s to blame.

Now that we have almost all of the world’s information in our pockets, we can look up anything in an instant. This leads us down endless rabbit holes, which feels like thinking. Yet often it’s just consuming.

We’re shaken from this delusion only when the time comes to write a report or proposal on our research. Then it suddenly feels like we don’t have any ideas of our own.

We discover that all that research hasn’t made writing any easier. In fact, it’s made it far worse, as our head spins with countless facts and snippets but no clear way to join them up.

The problem then isn’t what to write but what not to write. (Too many people solve that by chucking everything in and letting the reader decide what’s important. This never ends well, as it just passes the problem on.)
 

Imposter syndrome

Then there’s imposter syndrome. All that research has revealed how much we still don’t know. This creates a crushing feeling of inadequacy that paralyses our typing fingers for days.

(Even Kahneman struggled with this. He was convinced that his book Thinking, Fast and Slow was terrible. Yet it went on to become an international bestseller, with more than 10 million copies sold to date.)

The trouble is that our brains are wired to find searching even more enjoyable than discovering. This is because the feel-good hormone dopamine is released when we anticipate rewards, not when we actually get them.

Dopamine is the molecule of more. It’s what made our ancient relatives venture outside of the cave to find food and other resources for survival. In short, it’s what made our ancestors our ancestors.
 

Dopamine hit

The more we research, the more dopamine we get.

This continual hit is the same thing that keeps us surfing Netflix previews, numbing our judgement to the point that nothing feels quite good enough to make us want to settle down and actually watch something.

And it’s why we keep scrolling, convinced that the One Key Fact we need for our document is just a click away.

In fact, dopamine is what makes drug addicts become dependent.

Research doesn’t just feel better than thinking; it’s literally addictive.

But there is a way to switch from this never-ending research spiral and uncover your best ideas. And it’s one that might surprise you.
 

Thinking without thinking

Writing is difficult not just because, like reading, it’s an unnatural process for the human brain. It’s also hard because it forces us to think.

But the flip side of this is that writing down even the most lame-sounding, clumsy sentence will help you to start making sense of the jumble of ideas in your head.

Thinking becomes easier once you stop researching. So the best way around this analysis paralysis is to behave as if you already know enough and start writing anyway.

Don’t worry: you’re not abandoning the seductive search for the One Key Fact that you think will make everything easier (even though it usually doesn’t). You’re just hitting pause long enough for the dust to settle in your brain.

As you write, you will uncover gaps in your knowledge. But rather than looking up those details now, just add placeholders in [square brackets] and continue writing if you can.
 

Miraculous

This will do two things:

1. Your research will become more targeted, helping to keep you out of those endless rabbit holes.
2. You’ll start thinking for yourself without even realising it.

 
This can feel almost miraculous, like discovering real gold inside your keyboard.

The truth is that it was there in your head all along. You just needed to stop researching for long enough to find it.
 

Image credit: Anna Vangorodska / Shutterstock

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Author: Rob Ashton

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Rob Ashton is the founder of Emphasis and posts mainly about writing and the brain – a topic he's been researching for seven years. You can read more of his work in Writing Matters – our weekly bulletin of career-building writing advice backed by science.