Thursday 13: Freelance Writing Productivity Tips
by Annie Mueller
- Set aside time to plan. Once a week is enough, if you put enough time aside to actually plan for your whole week. Sit down with your papers, your calendar or PDA or online system, your planner, your family schedule. If you keep the same, regular writing schedule each week, your planning time can be short. You need only determine what you will work on during each writing block and put it in your calendar. If your writing hours change from week to week, then determine what they are for the upcoming week and what projects will fill them, then write all that information in your calendar. In ink.
- Set aside time to outline. If you have enough time while you are planning, you can outline then. If not, spend the first half hour of your writing time each day outlining the articles and other projects you will write this week. You don’t need to create complex outlines, just a simple heading, your main points, and a few details or references if you think of them. Those outlines will help you to accomplish you have planned to accomplish for the week.
- Stick to your plan and use your outlines. Don’t be tempted to wander into unplanned territory when you sit down to write. You thought your plan through and made the right decision. You created an outline. Don’t second guess yourself or procrastinate on the project that seems unpleasant. Make yourself do what you have planned, even if you have to do that bargaining routine. “Okay, I’ll write on this article for thirty minutes and then I can check my email!”
- Create editorial calendars. Editorial calendars are great tools, especially if the work you do is largely self-directed, as many blogging jobs are. Have you had a week when you just can’t come up with new content? Ah. It’s painful. During one of those creative days, when you can feel ideas oozing out of you, sit down and make a list of all those topics, categorize them as fits your work, and then take it a step further by assigning a particular time for those topics. You can keep it open-ended. For example, if you have fifteen ideas for a housekeeping gadget series, you can put all those ideas in your House/Home category and then put a note on your calendar for next month: “Write 5 articles from the Housekeeping Gadget series for Blog XYZ this month.”
- Make yourself write one paragraph. Starting is the most difficult part. Train yourself in this habit: always make yourself write the first paragraph. You will find that if you push your way through the first, painful paragraph, you’ll sail through the second and barely notice as the third rushes from your fingertips.
- Never expect to use the first paragraph. You will almost always find that the first paragraph flows better when you’re not expecting to use it, or if it still doesn’t sound quite right, you won’t have any problem using ye olde delete key.
- Write first, edit later. Self-editing is important, but not while you are writing the first draft. The first draft is free. No red pen exists while the first draft is in progress. You don’t know the rules of grammar while you write the first draft. You’ve never even heard of grammar. Logical sequence? Argumentative structure? Flow? Transitions? What? You have no idea what those mean during the first draft. Write it. Get it out. Save it. Then go back and edit it.
- Spend time outside. If your work environment allows it, take a little break and a walk around the block after each longer writing session. Don’t do anything, just breathe and look around. Take your kids to the playground in the evening and skip the movie. Go for a walk instead of for a drive. Get to know what surrounds you, and you will find yourself more energetic and more creative in your writing.
- Write in lists first, then go back and format it as you need it. This is a great method for a piece that is holding your prisoner. Forget about the format, and just start making a list of phrases, ideas, reference, points, opposing arguments, images. Make as long a list as you can, then put it aside. Pick it up next time and sort through that list for the material that will actually become your piece. You might include it all, or half of it, or you might take one or two points and branch off into something else. But you will have a starting point, and that is the important part.
- Spend some time researching, but set a timer. For bigger projects, of course, you might need actual books. Library trips. Schedule a writing block or two for those, take notes, bring home what you must. For smaller projects, a little time spent online or at your own bookshelf will suffice. Set your timer for ten or fifteen minutes and research all you can in that time. Jot down a few notes, bookmark relevant links, and stop when the timer goes off. Start writing. If you find that you need to do more research later, you can, but don’t put off writing for it. After that initial block of research, get some words down.
- Take notes when you read books. Even fiction. It’s so hard for me to remember what I really enjoyed about a particular book when someone brings it up six months later. Keep a notebook and pen handy by your bed or favorite chair, and just make a few notes while you read or after you close the book for the night. It’s also helpful to take ten minutes when you finish a book to write a quick summary of what you liked, didn’t like, learned, or would have written differently.
- Listen to intelligent talk or good music on your downtime. Garbage in, garbage out, so don’t waste your brain cells on low quality music that deadens your aesthetic sense or loud, obnoxious conversation that offers nothing positive. If it’s people, walk away. If it’s the tv, change the channel, or turn it off and go for a walk instead. If it’s your music player, spend a little time expanding your music collection. Try something different.
- Don’t stop for rabbit trails, just capture them for later. In the middle of an article, which is coming together as planned, you have a great idea for a whole series of articles, or how to work out that scene in your novel, or you see the word you needed for the third line of your poem. Great. Grab a piece of paper or open another document on your computer, write it down, and save it somewhere safe. Then put it away. It’s there. You have captured it. You can make good on it later. Don’t stop the productive time to chase the rabbit now.
- BONUS: If you can, plan one writing block out of your week for catching up or getting ahead or working on that dream project. Use as needed..
Make it a good day.
Image Credit: gruntzooki.
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August 29th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
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