Stay on Task with Writing and Write More Each Day
Here are some practical tips for writing more each day and staying on task with your writing goals. I often get asked how I write so many articles each day or how other writers can learn to write more or write faster. Here is a sample question asked to me recently by another writer and the answers that I gave to assist. The writer asking had cats and a spouse at home that often demand time which is taken away from writing or can become a distraction. I have four kids of my own so I fully understand distractions but anyone can learn to work around them.
I want to be more focused in actually staying on task, rather than giving way to distractions.
I completely understand how that goes. I have a full house myself and a husband home all day with me. One way that I combat this is to take hourly breaks. The kids and husband all know they can wait to ask me questions for one of my breaks. And me and the hubby schedule time together every day (go for walks, spend time in the evenings) so this lets us get our time together so I can be less interrupted when working. I have a lot of articles and blog posts on my blog and on the Internet that can help with this.
One tip I use myself and personally enjoy is to keep a daily diary of what you do. Mark it in 15 minute increments and track your progress for a couple of days. Then read over this and see how many opportunities of wasted time you have. This helps you be accountable to yourself for what you’re really doing all day.
When you get off balance with your schedule, everything suffers. You may feel like you’re staring at a computer screen all day and never really finishing anything and still not getting time with family or for the fun things you want to do. When you learn to stay on task, you can be more productive with your writing and then get back to the other things you want to be doing.
Another way to reach that 10 article a day goal is to time yourself on writing the articles. How long is your average? Can you shave 1 minute off each article? Could you maybe shave 2? This is how you learn to write faster and discipline yourself so that writing 10 is a breeze and you still have time left in your day for doing other things.
Do you cats roam free in the room you work in? Can you shut them out or is it an open room? If it’s possible to shut them out, you could start your morning making sure they are cared for, then give yourself an hour. Set a timer and say “I’m going to do x number of articles in this hour”. When that hour is up, whether you are finished or not, take a break, open the door, let the cats in. Play with them, tend to their needs, maybe get a drink or snack or walk around the house and then come back and set your timer again. Set a new mini-goal for the next hour such as “I am going to write x more articles” or “I am going to edit the ones I have written” or maybe “I am going to research for these articles I need to write next”.
Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t always meet your goals for that hour but the more you do it, the easier it will become and you will find yourself exceeding your goals.
