It’s easy to do something you don’t care about. Like playing an unranked match of Battlefield: Bad Company — since you’re not worried about losing, chances are you won’t buckle under the pressure, find yourself alone at an enemy base, and get knifed in the back while sneaking away through a group of bushes behind a farm shed.

More to the point, Sean D’Souza over at Copyblogger wrote an article last Monday which questioned why it’s so easy to write an e-mail and yet (sometimes) so hard to get any real work done.

“…we don’t struggle to write an email.
We don’t write, re-write, re-think and then write something boring.

Our emails are crisp. They have flow. And ebb.
They often have a storyline.
Drama creeps in inevitably.
And the email keeps the attention of the reader.

So if we examine the issue closer, it’s not that you can’t write.
It’s that when put in the spot to write something like an article or a sales letter…
That’s when you freeze.”

- 3 Tips to Make Writing Less of a Struggle

Writing is like any other activity: if you concentrate too hard, if you try to be too perfect, you’re only setting yourself up for failure. We shouldn’t bother ourselves with consequences or needless pressure, because great writing is free and natural, unhindered by a fear of failure or a desire for success.

So, the next time you sit down to write something — anything — just remember the old adage printed on that wholly remarkable book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

Don’t panic.