1. Take the pressure off
I don’t know about you, but staring at a blank page can be pretty intimidating. Take the pressure off, you don’t need to start from the opening or even write the personal statement in a linear way. Pick the bit of your experience (whether it’s a book or work experience or something else) that you’re most inspired by in that moment and start writing about it.
- Use your notes app or something less intimidating than your usual word processing software.
2. Voice to text
Sometimes even the act of typing or writing feels too daunting. Here’s where I recommend either chatting with a friend or family and recording the conversation or just talking to yourself. Speak naturally, it doesn’t need to be formal or academic. At the start, you’re just trying to get ideas down and consider possible examples and links you can use.
Editing down a transcript isn’t easy, but it’s often easier!
You could use your phone’s voice recorder, Evernote, Otter.ai, or something else. Just use the literal transcription features, avoid anything that edits or restructures your transcript.
3. Structures (STAR and PEEL)
When you’re writing in the notes app, create a bullet point list for each experience. STAR and PEEL are both useful paragraph structures (but don’t need to be strictly followed if they don’t feel right).
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