One of the biggest mistakes made by Republicans at last month’s day-long Health Care Summit (the televised Blair House event) was their repeated call for starting from scratch with “a blank sheet of paper.” No matter how one felt about the proposed legislation, the prospect of restarting with a blank page after a year of debate had little appeal. Give us an alternate plan … convince us that we shouldn’t reform health care … ANYTHING but a blank sheet of paper!
The empty page is a scary prospect for most of us. That’s one reason why people love to get an agenda at the beginning of a meeting: “Ah, here’s some paper with words on it; everything is going to be okay.”
A piece of advice I often give my clients (and myself) is to get rid of the blank sheet of paper (or the blank screen with perpetually blinking cursor) by creating a bad first draft as quickly as possible. Pre-labeling it as “bad” frees us to write without judgement: it’s already been judged – it’s bad! For most of us, it’s much easier to start fixing the bad draft than it is to stare at the empty screen.
So crank out that bad first draft NOW! And if you need assistance with the second draft, I know a guy who can help …
