I’ve been spending a lot of time experimenting lately with different systems to increase my productivity.
School is starting soon, and I know I’m going to have a very small window every morning to write. I also have big plans for the future and three book projects in the works. So I need to be productive. I need to maximize that time.
I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Even if you could sit down and write all day you might not get to the average of 2500 words per hour. I know some writers write more than that per hour, but I’ve almost doubled my productivity and I’m excited about the results. So how did I do it?
I started experimenting.
I’ve also been reading a lot. I’m going to suggest a couple books here take a look at the and see if they might be right for you.
The first book is called The Eight-Minute Writing Habit it’s by Monica leonelle. It’s a quick read and the book is packed with a lot of information. I will say that the book is a follow-up to her first book, Write Better, Faster: How To Triple Your Writing Speed and Write More Every Day (Growth Hacking For Storytellers #1). I am now reading the first book, so I did it a little bit backwards. If you’re looking to improve your productivity or want some insider tips on how to write your book quickly, read the table of contents of both and decide which one sounds best for you to read first.
Back to those experiments…A couple of things that I’ve tried this week include:
Dictating
I’ve been working on dictating fiction and nonfiction. Both are working well, however dictating nonfiction is a lot easier for me because I can create a quick outline and I’m a fast talker. I use Dragon naturally speaking on my computer and I use Dragon dictation on my phone. The mobile app is not spectacular but it does get the job done.
A New Morning Routine
The other thing that I tried was changing up my morning routine. In the book Monica talks about how writing in the morning sets the stage for your creativity for the rest of the day. That resonated with me. If I work on my book even for just eight minutes in the morning, I will think about what I wrote and what’s going to happen next the rest of the day. It sets the stage to be in a creative mindset all day long.
I can tell you for sure that when I’m thinking about my book during the day, I will find five minutes to sit down and write what’s on my mind. So this morning I got up, I drank my coffee, and instead of meditating I decided I would journal and sort of get all of my tumbling thoughts out of the way so that I could think clearly about my writing. And then I wrote for about 20 minutes.
That was my first writing project today. I had breakfast did some things around the house and then I sat down to work on the client project. Using the dictation software, I was able to get it done very quickly – all I have to do now is send it to the editor and I have the rest of the day to either work on my own fiction projects or to enjoy my Sunday afternoon.
If you have tips or thoughts on how to increase your own writing productivity share your thoughts in the comments.
Happy writing!