You’ve been wracking your brain trying to figure out what to write about on your next article or blogpost, but have come up with nothing. Zero. Zilch. When you’re at your wit’s end, here are a few places to go for inspiration.

Go Into Nature

There’s something about the sight of trees, the sound of rain, the smell of the ocean, and the feel of sand and rocks that help you to refocus and rediscover what’s important. Here’s an interesting article about sounds: Why Buffalos and Crickets Help Us Relax. A field trip to a nearby park can really get the inspirational juices going.

Take a Shower

A warm shower is one of the most relaxing places there is. You don’t have to take one with your dog to get the benefits, but that could help as well. Look at how happy that dog looks!

Get Enough Sleep

Getting enough sleep has been touted lately as important to alertness and health. And if you don’t believe me, take a look at these articles:

• 9 Surprising Reasons to Sleep More
• The Benefits of Slumber: Why You Need a Good Night’s Sleep
• Napping

Go for a Drive

A drive forces your mind to focus on something other than your work (unless you’re a taxi driver). Hopefully, there’s a place to drive nearby with trees and that doesn’t involve sitting in traffic. Rolling the windows down and feeling the wind can help clear the cobwebs out of your mind and help inspire you.

Explore Other Blogs–Or Your Own

Other blogs may give you ideas that you hadn’t thought about. You could even search Google for “Inspiration,” and see where that takes you. Another idea is to go back through your own blog and see if you could take off or expand upon an idea that you had.

 

Spend Time with Pets

Your pet cat, your pet iguana, and your dogs would all like you to inspire you. And it turns out that you can get a lot of great ideas from man’s (and woman’s) best friends. Being more curious is but one of the things you can learn from your pets.

Go Somewhere with No Internet

Better still, go there without any way to record those new ideas. Then you’ll be forced to remember that idea. Many of us who are online all day find being offline a welcome relief.

Answer the Questions Your Clients Ask You

Clients will often ask you the best questions, questions that you didn’t know that anyone had! Last week, someone asked me how to have a conversation on Twitter, and seemed surprised that a conversation was even possible. That could turn into a blog post, or a series of tweets.

Talk to Your Friends

I’ve talked about having a blogging buddy before. That is someone who supports your crazy, crazy ideas, and inspires you to have more of them. Bridget Willard is mine. You could also have coffee or lunch with someone, especially if, like many entrepreneurs you often eat lunch alone.

Let Tweetchats Inspire You

Sometimes I’ll get inspiration from others on the #DigiBlogChat Tweetchat (Tuesdays at 1 pm pst if you’d like to join!). Recently, someone asked about Twitter best practices, so that became a blogpost and it also turned into chat questions, too. Yes, the tweetchat idea was the 1/2, but really it’s more like one and one-half. That chat always invigorates me!