5 ways to make your writing time more productive
We all want to make our writing time more productive. We’d all love to write more and make more progress than we currently do, yet managing to do this in reality can be harder than we first think. It takes commitment, and it also takes a little bit of planning and ingenuity. Here are five ways to make your writing time more productive.
Do the maths (yawn)
First of all, it’s worth doing your sums. Work out how many hours per week you have to spend on your writing. Then work out how many words you can write in an hour. Multiply your words per hour by your hours per week to work out how many words you can feasibly write in a week.
Take a look at your current productivity rate – are you hitting your maximum word count each week? If not, there is definitely room for you to be more productive, even when you’ve built in breaks. Start thinking about where the time goes when you’re not writing, and whether you’re using it all productively – or whether you’re using it for Twitter.
Know your best time
You can also increase your productivity simply by changing the time of day at which you write. This might involve some jiggerypokery and rearranging of various activities, but it’s worth doing what you can to write at your best time of day.
Stop talking about writing
This one doesn’t need much of an explanation. If you want your writing time to be more productive, just start writing. Don’t talk about writing. It might feel like you’re being productive as it’s related to your writing, but as long as you’re talking about it you’re not actually doing it.
Redefine progress
It’s also worth redefining what progress means to you. Maybe you can’t always hit your word count goal for every week, but you can make progress of another kind. You might finish a chapter, for instance, or learn three new things about independent publishing or teach yourself a new type of marketing. All of these things are productive and move you forward, even if they don’t boost your word count by X number of words.
Market your deadline
If you need a big jolt to make you more productive when writing, give yourself a deadline and tell people about it. Announce the publication date for your next book (or if you can’t bring yourself to name a specific date, the publication month). Self-imposed deadlines can work just as well, but if you’re someone who’s known for bending them, letting other people know what your deadline is can be the push you need to become more productive.
How do you make your writing time as productive as possible?
