Writers: Use the Create Before You Consume Challenge to Elevate Your Writing Life

The Create Before You Consume Challenge is a challenge any writer can do at any time in their life. The challenge is simple; you must create, before you consume any other form of media. More specifically, you must write, before scrolling through social media, watching TV, listening to the radio or a podcast, or even reading. If you can accomplish that then you’ve “won” the challenge.

How Does the Challenge Work?

It doesn’t matter what you write, it’s more about when your write for the Create Before You Consume Challenge.

Once you’ve accepted the challenge, there are a few things you can do to make it easier to accomplish. First and foremost is to set a goal for the time period you’re going to do the challenge. In other words, choose a writing assignment you’re going to be excited to wake up for and accomplish. For example, decide during your Create Before You Consume challenge that you’re going to write 500 words on the novel you’ve been trying to finish – or start. You could also challenge yourself to write a new poem every morning, or do your morning pages, or write in a journal. There’s no limit to what you write. You could even challenge yourself to write a letter every morning to a friend or family member. Remember writing letters is a great way to flex your writing muscle.  

 Now that you’ve established the “creative” part of the challenge, it’s time to turn our attention to the consumption bit. Suffice it to say, in today’s day and age, many of us our addicted to our phones and plugged into some form of media 24/7. We’re scrolling through social media from almost the minute we wake up, and ingesting podcasts, YouTube videos, and other online entertainment until we go to sleep at night. In order to break those habits so we don’t consume before we create, sometimes it is necessary to change up our routines.

 Consider These Tips:

• Hide your phone or move it out of your bedroom so you’re not tempted to pick it up first thing in the morning. The same goes if you have a TV in your room.

• Get an alarm clock so you’re not dependent on your smartphone to wake you up.

• Wake up 30 minutes to 60 minutes early to give yourself enough time to write before it is imperative that you consume some kind of media.   

• If you “fall of the wagon” and consume some form of media before you create one day, write anyway and try again the next day.

• And don’t forget, make sure you reward yourself when you “win” the challenge. Maybe a trip to your favorite bookstore, a cupcake from your favorite bakery, or a gold star on your wall. Whatever says winner to you, give yourself the glory for creating before consuming for the duration of the challenge.

What are the Benefits of the Create Before You Consume Challenge?

There are several benefits to the Create Before You Consume Challenge, benefits that can stretch far beyond the days of the challenge itself. First and foremost, at the end of the challenge you have a body of work that you have completed that otherwise might not have gotten done. The other benefit of the challenge is that it can help you develop a sustainable and productive writing habit. In other words, if you keep “creating before consuming” you will continue to write every day, first thing in the morning, and generate your most creative output. And this is where the real magic of the Create Before You Consume Challenge comes in. It’s all about the type of work you produce when your brain is free from all of the noise we ingest all day long.

Creativity Unplugged

Your cell phone is not your friend in the Create Before You Consume Challenge.

Studies out of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan have both shown that social media consumption can have a negative effect on creativity. In addition to the obvious loss of time that we could be using to write, consuming social media also leads to difficulty coming up with “new ideas” and “original solutions to problems.”  It also stifles our creativity with the overload of information and the tendency to compare our work with others in our field.

 Therefore, one of the biggest benefit of the Create Before You Consume challenge is getting to see what it feels like to create with an uncluttered brain. To write without the background noise of nonstop media consumption. To work in a flow state that comes early in the morning before we start to concern ourselves with the activities and responsibilities of our daily life. There is truly magic in the air when we can capture those precious minutes or hours when our brains are at their most creative and free.

 Even for the people who identify as night owls, who feel their creativity spike at the end of the day or late into the night, there is a marked difference when we create first thing in the morning before we begin to fill our brains with new input. At the end of the day, your brain is truly overloaded with information, which is why most people want to sleep at night rather than work on their latest writing project.

How To Use the Create Before You Consume Challenge in Your Writer’s Toolbox

Right now, I am hosting a Five-Day Create Before You Consume Challenge for writers. It’s not too late to join, even if it’s for the last three days. Three days is better than one and you get the benefit of doing the challenge in community. However, you don’t have to wait for someone else to host a challenge, you can always challenge yourself. I mean, you could pay Weight Watchers to help you lose weight, or you could simply follow your own diet plan and get the same results. The same is true here.

 You can pick a week, or two weeks, or even a month to challenge yourself to Create Before You Consume. The goal, in my opinion, is to make this a regular habit, not just a one-off experience.

 Another reason you might want to host your own private Create Before You Consume Challenge, is to tighten up or begin a regular writing habit. If you feel like you’ve been slacking with your daily writing goals, or maybe you haven’t quite managed to get into a daily writing groove, this challenge is the perfect exercise to get you writing on a regular basis, and in a way that’s efficient and highly productive.

Basically, I tell my creative writing clients and students to keep the Create Before You Consume Challenge in their writer’s toolbox and use it whenever they need a tune-up or a refresh.

I hope I’ve convinced you to add this easy challenge to your writer’s toolbox and that it helps you elevate your writing habit and your writing life.