Due to the importance of writing a good resume, the prospect can be a daunting one. This can lead to a development of writer’s block. When you’re looking for a job, writer’s block is a delay that you can’t afford. Thankfully, there are a myriad of useful tips that you can use to overcome your writer’s block and get back to writing your resume.

Take a Break

The key to a good resume is to sell your accomplishments and reasons as to why you’d be a good fit for the job in question. It’s essential that you don’t use too many words to do this. Because brevity is so important, writing a high quality resume can be more difficult than it first seems. If you notice that you’re simply not able to get in the writing mood, take a small break and see if that helps. Doing something else during this break helps to transition your mind to a point where you’re able to write the resume. This break can be anything from making a sandwich or getting a cup of coffee to walking your dog or talking to a friend. Keep the break to five or ten minutes. Don’t forget to stretch your legs during this time.

Find a Better Setting

A setting for your writing is undeniably important for being able to properly put words to paper. Going to a quieter area of your home at the right time of day can bring out your creativity in ways you didn’t know. Instrumental music can also do wonders in getting you in the right mood for writing. You can also travel to a coffee shop to write the resume there if the hustle and bustle is better suited for your creativity.

Write the Resume in Portions

It’s wise not to try and write all of the resume in one single sitting. Breaking it up into portions can help to alleviate any writer’s block you’re currently going through. This allows you to place your focus on one section at a time. For instance, consider filling out the Objective portion of the resume at the beginning. This section is designed to provide the tone for the remainder of your resume, which assists with the writing of the rest of the sections. If you’d rather start with portions of the resume that are easier to write, the sections for filling out any education you’ve received or relevant dates should be worked on first. No matter how simple the section is to write, just getting something down on paper helps to alleviate writer’s block.

Utilize the Free Write Technique

One of the best ways to move past a case of writer’s block is to simply write about anything until you’ve got yourself into a bit of a flow. Free write is a technique where you take a sentence that you’re writing and write an entire paragraph about that sentence. This helps to loosen up your writing and get into a rhythm that you can transmit to the writing of your resume. Do this until you feel as though you’ve progressed through the writer’s block. You can even write paragraphs about things around you, so you don’t have to keep it centered solely around the resume. In general, just write about whatever comes to your head.

Create a Rough Draft

One of the very best tips for overcoming writer’s block is to write a rough draft. This allows you to stay away from needing everything to be absolutely perfect with the first draft. In fact, perfectionism is one of the largest causes of writer’s block. In most cases, you would need to edit the resume anyways. Once you create a rough draft, you can edit it down and create enough rough drafts until you’ve settled on a final draft that you believe represents your best work. Throughout this process, your writer’s block will gradually lessen until it all but disappears. A rough draft provides you with the opportunity to write without having to focus intently on every word. If you follow each of these tips, writer’s block should be a thing of the past.