Inspiration is important. Your influences matter. But you also need time to process, reflect, and create your own connections before jumping into your next project. Whether that’s a book, startup, or scientific theory, the lesson holds true for artists, entrepreneurs, and scientists, alike.

Best-selling author, Ryan Holiday, refers to these as “drawdown periods.” In the months leading up to writing a new book, Holiday guards himself against new information with the potential to clutter this mind. Instead, he seeks a period of stillness where he’s able to distill information and settle his mind before jumping off and creating something new.

““For one of my books I gave myself a January 1 start date for the writing. Two months before, in November, I entered my drawdown period. No more reading or rereading. Just thinking. Long walks. Resting. Preparing.””

— Ryan Holiday

The danger of neglecting a drawdown period is failing to create a buffer where you’re able to discover and piece together your own thoughts on the subject. Instead, you’re just regurgitating the latest idea or concept you’ve heard, as if it’s your own. To be fair, this is human nature — we’re highly impressionable, social beings.

But creating a little more distance is a good thing. It provides additional perspective that you’re able to bring back to your work. Without this, you’re just facing an onslaught of information and distraction which can be difficult to make sense of.

Is your idea worth pursuing?

Above everything else, drawdown periods help inform whether or not an idea’s worth pursuing. The original source of “drawdown periods” — where Holiday borrowed the concept from — was military strategist, John Boyd. After he encountered a breakthrough or exciting new idea, he would spend weeks examining it, assessing its originality, and stress-testing it for problems. If it survived this period, he knew it was worth investing in.

The greater the endeavor, the more vital a drawdown period becomes. It’s important to act when inspiration strikes as it relates to the little things — an article, a small experiment, a new tactic. But the mountains — new books, startups, theories — are worth reflecting on before jumping in.

This helps create a natural filter for the things you’re not completely invested in. If the idea still resonates with you tomorrow, next week, next month, you might be on to something.

Tapering before the race

Far from killing inspiration, drawdown periods promote creativity. They allow you to find your voice and the guiding principle behind your next project. Without this, it’s impossible to sort through what’s your own.

Drawdown periods are the calm before the storm. If you set off scrambling without first setting your feet, you’re putting yourself behind from the start. While everyone loses their way at some point, it’s important to have a sense of your guiding principle — this initial footing — that you can return to along the way. And the best way to establish an early version of your guiding principle is by creating room to reflect before taking the leap.

Creative work is difficult enough, as is. Don’t make it more difficult by cluttering your mind at the start. Allow yourself time to breathe before setting off on your next pursuit.

It’s similar to tapering before a race. If you’re rested, you’ll be in better condition to handle the strenuous demands of the real race and guard yourself against burnout. In endurance sports, two days before a race, your metabolic fitness level is what it will be for the upcoming race. No matter how hard you train during those final 48 hours, you won’t see any benefits to your endurance in time for the race. Rest matters.

The value of tuning out

In 1902, Albert Einstein took a job at the Swiss patent office. The years he spent there could be considered the ultimate drawdown period. It was challenging enough to keep his mind engaged, but not enough to distract him from his more important focus on comprehending and redefining physics.

Three years later, Einstein published his paper, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” which outlines the special theory of relativity. Its contributions to the field of physics were profound. But one of the most astonishing things about the paper was that it had exactly zero footnotes or citations. It was like he reached the conclusions through years of pure thought, without listening to outside opinion.

While Einstein is an extreme example and a profound abstract thinker, the underlying lesson holds true. For originality and creativity, sometimes you need to allow yourself to tune out.

““If you’re constantly exposed to other people’s ideas, it can be tough to think up your own.” ”

— Jake Knapp + John Zeratsky

Deliberate or impulsive?

Drawdown periods aren’t an excuse to avoid getting started. You’re never going to be as prepared as you might like. Drawdown periods are more about giving yourself a moment of calm before the grind of creating something from nothing. New startups, books, and theories can take years, if not decades, to develop.

The difference between great artists, entrepreneurs, and scientists is the difference between drawdown periods and procrastination. Drawdown periods are deliberate. Procrastination is impulsive.

At a certain point, it helps to limit exposure and turn things back to yourself. Allow yourself to mull ideas, forge connections on your own terms, and see what comes out of it. It’s impossible to find your own voice if you’re bombarding yourself with other people’s ideas without giving yourself time to breathe.

Drawdown periods offer a temporary refrain when you’re able to step back and see the terrain. This allows you a chance to appreciate the interconnected whole and create connections or bridge ideas that you might have otherwise missed. The more perspective you can build, the better you’ll be for it. And the same goes for your craft.

As a smart creative, drawdown periods are essential. Give yourself time to prepare, rest, and reflect before your next endeavor. You’ll need every ounce of energy you have if you want to get your thinking clean and bring the best version of an idea to life.

There's nothing that writers love more than reading about writing (although, reading about reading comes in at a close second). Everyone's looking for a universal secret that sets apart the best writers or makes the writing process easier. Unfortunately, that secret doesn't exist.

The only consistency I have found across all great writers is that they show up. They define themselves by an insatiable desire to write–it's a core part of their routine and they put in the work every single day.

While you might not self-identify as a "writer," that's okay. Journaling for reflection, working on your communication skills, and piecing together a 300-page novel are each valid objectives. But if you want to improve your writing–the foundational skill to each of these–you have to consistently show up, work at it, and make it part of your routine.

Over the past year, quite a few people have reached out asking for details on my own writing process. While I consider my writing skills to be a work in progress, this is my attempt to detail what my current system looks like. I don't pretend to have all the answers, but my hope is to provide you with a few tactics that you might leverage on your own.

Takeaways:

Reading, writing and learning fuel each other. Channel your intellectual curiosity and you'll never face a shortage of ideas.
Timing is important but it's not everything. Determine what's sustainable for you and stick with that.
Writing is about momentum and a relaxed state of concentration. Don't interrupt this unnecessarily.
Editing demands grit. It's here where the great writers set themselves apart.

How do you come up with ideas?

Reading, writing, and learning fuel each other. Anytime I've struggled to come up with new ideas, it's almost always because I'm not reading enough or challenging myself to learn anything new. If you channel your intellectual curiosity, this problem takes care of itself.

Read, listen to podcasts, make sure you're learning something new in every environment you're in. This is how you begin building a network of mental models which allows you to uncover new ideas and connect concepts in interesting ways.

When you commit time to pursue knowledge and exercise your own curiosity–in whatever form that takes–you'll never face a shortage of new material and ideas to choose from.

I keep a running list of all my ideas, potential topics, and relevant thoughts in Notes (iOS) and Ulysses. This way I don't lose track of anything that comes to me throughout the day.

When do you write?

Timing is important, but it's not everything. It can either be an excuse to avoid putting in the work, or it can be turned to your advantage. While many great writers have tended to write early in the morning, you shouldn't obsess over replicating their routines. Find what works and is sustainable, for you. The most important thing is getting started.

Once you're in the habit of writing, if you want to fine-tune your process, consider your internal clock. Writing is an intensive, creative process that demands significant focus. If at all possible, pick a time of the day when you're at your peak level of concentration. Otherwise, it will be tough to sustain.

I'm a morning person–my most productive hours are between 6:30 and 10:30 AM. Each morning I wake up at 6:00 AM and write for at least a couple hours before heading into work. I guard this time seven days a week, as it's the most important part of the day for me. Weekends are slightly different, with a few hours of writing in the morning, and a second shorter session at a coffee shop in the afternoon.

This will inevitably change over time as your position in life changes. Five years ago, I was the exact opposite and only wrote at night. Allow yourself to adapt, but make sure you don't lose the habit.

What does your writing process look like?

Sometimes I begin writing an article because I have a general idea of what I want to say. Other times, I'm trying to figure something out for myself. Either way, for me, writing is about momentum.

When I sit down to work through a new idea, I'm not writing for structure or format. I'm not writing to assemble a cohesive argument. And I'm not writing from an outline. I'm writing to get every relevant thought I have on that topic down on paper. For a single article, this can take anywhere from an hour to a few days.

The motivation during this initial phase is to get to a place where I'm not thinking about the act of writing. If I start thinking too much about what I'm doing, I can't achieve a state of relaxed concentration where I am at my most creative and coming up with my best work.

“As one achieves focus, the mind quiets. As the mind is kept in the present, it becomes calm. Focus means keeping the mind now and here. Relaxed concentration is the supreme art because no art can be achieved without it.”

— W. Timothy Gallwey

Other than my initial approach, I've found a couple of tactics that help facilitate this momentum, flow, relaxed concentration–whatever you want to call it.

The first is that I'll listen to the same song for hours on end to help induce a deeper state of creativity. I've found that listening to one song on repeat often helps jumpstart things and push me towards the proper state of mind. I'm not the first one to discover this, it seems quite popular among writers and software developers.

The second tactic I use is to help steal some sense of momentum when things have stalled. To overcome inevitable lulls, I'll double back and rewrite the previous sentence or two. It's a mental thing where I feel like I can carry that energy through better if I'm able to create some type of forward motion.

Think of it as riding your bike up a hill. If you mount your bike in the middle of a hill, it can be difficult to make your way to the top based on the immediate level of resistance. Whereas if you start at the bottom (less resistance) and build some momentum going into the climb, you'll be able to better carry that through to the top. It's amazing how often this gets me back on track heading into a new section.

How do you edit/refine your articles?

This is where the attention to detail comes into play. My rough drafts are very rough drafts. As a result, I spend a significant amount of time editing, rewriting, and refining.

After I have all my thoughts down, I go back through the material to identify common themes and distill the most important ideas. Certain insights may (or may not) appear, and I'll draw from those as I begin to organize the article.

I'm never finished writing at this point. Often, there's quite a bit of work to be done. After I've arranged the article and developed some sense of structure, I'll go back and immerse myself in certain sections so I'm able to simplify ideas. Again, if I get stuck I'll use the tactics mentioned above to capture the same sense of flow I had during the initial writing process.

This part of the creative process often feels similar to a puzzle. You're piecing together fragments and determining how they best fit together. And it's in the process of uncovering and assembling those fragments that you find yourself and your best ideas in.

From the outside, writing appears romantic. You just pour your ideas onto a page then call it a day. But those who live it know the grit it entails. The editing process demands the greatest persistence of all. And it's never something you can rush through.

“Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress. The gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon, his or her advantage is stamina. Whereas disappointment or boredom signals to others that it is time to change trajectory and cut losses, the gritty individual stays the course.”

— Angela Duckworth

No one is above this final piece of the writing process–not even the greats. Ernest Hemingway rewrote the ending of A Farewell to Arms 47 times. Harper Lee spent two years working with her editor, Tay Hohoff, reworking the entire plot and cast of characters in what would become To Kill A Mockingbird.

It's foolish to expect perfection each time you sit down to write. If you get to the point where you've stared at what you've written for too long and begin to hate it, step away for a few days. Time and distance are often the true tests of quality.

But regardless of your objective, the most important part is sitting down to practice the craft.

Writing is not about some stroke of genius and it’s not pretty. It’s about grit, showing up, writing, editing, rewriting, and refining.

The Art of Drawdown Periods