5 Daily Micro Habits That Save Me Hours In Writing

When you harness the power of tiny things done right, you can accomplish larger goals — easily.

I envy some writers.

…who can afford to write for an hour or two in a stretch.

It’s a luxury for me. I get small pockets of time. So, it’s a grab-and-go style for me. Small bursts of writing sessions. In batches.

Very much like the way I cook, actually. Keeping the sauce ready for the pasta or gravy for the butter chicken (a dish everybody’s raving about these days).

Readying the things I know I will need later.

These tasks in themselves don’t amount to much but just doing them helps me oodles when I am assembling my writing pieces. By saving me much time.

So, here they come. Feel free to pick these micro habits if you feel they will help you in your writing process.

1. Work out my headline muscle. Daily.

Ask about the importance of practice to a swimmer or athlete. The game doesn’t begin after the starting pistol goes off. It begins way earlier — in the hours and hours of training.

For a writer, it’s the headline.

Training the headline muscle is aceing 80% of the game.

So, no taking chances here.

This was something that I caught on to very early in my writing days and still follow. 5–10 minutes every day I tone my headline hamstrings. 80% of them are dump-worthy, but the remaining 20% are pure carbon, which, with some polishing and tweaking, become diamonds — dazzling headlines.

How does this help:

I write a lot of not-the-usual stuff and getting an idea when I sit dedicatedly for that takes a lot of time. Ideation is the biggest bottleneck in this case.

• An untethered-to-deadline and free-to-ramble session enables me to come up with innovative ideas.
• Having a bunch of ideas ready cuts down on my overall writing time.
• And once I have my ideas, writing is just a game of practice.

2. And then, stealing some more…headlines.

Oh…the look on your face. Or maybe, grimace?

I know stealing is a strong word. Maybe we shouldn’t call that. Let’s go with ‘being inspired’. Better?

I allot a small chunk of time every day to scroll through the internet (Medium home page, Google search results, etc.) and cherry-pick good headlines.

What do I do with them? Well, I templatize them. Yes, make a generic formula out of that that I can use for any other topic.

Like today, I got this great headline in my morning read:

The Briefest “How to Beat Procrastination” Guide You’ll Possibly Ever See

That I templatized into:

The Briefest “[desired objective]” Guide You’ll Possibly Ever See

And this is how I might use it:

“How To Become an Online Writer” Guide — The Lazy Version

I pick 2–3 good headlines in a day that go into my template file.

How does this help:

• Having reference headlines handy gives me a good starting point. Not necessary that I end up using a headline from a previous template, but it surely helps me especially when I am a li’l tight on time.
• And NO. I don’t copy-paste the headline when I use it, I tweak it more to suit my requirements.

And trust me, it’s not cheating. It’s smart (maybe a tad lazy) but when you have so much on your plate, it’s better to be shrewd.

3. Sifting my dump book.

Aka, my notebooks.

I have quite some strewn all around the house — kitchen, bedside, and another one in the living room (beneath the travel magazine). Handy is how I like them.

You never know when an idea will dawn upon you.

Dumping them is one thing but then, what’s the point if I don’t use them, right? And I am borderline OCD..thankfully I must say..coz it helps me better in my writing.

And I feel restless if they are not stacked in their right place. Headline ideas, writing topics, short feeds, tweet ideas, one-liners, etc. — they are all folder names/excel sheets.

And after an item is allocated to a respectable place, only then do I strike it out.

How does this help:

• Organizing the random thoughts gives me a lot of fodder for my work. Good ready-to-use stuff.
• These uncut pieces impart a lot to my style of writing.
• The majority of my short feeds are fueled by these notebooks. And also many of my writing topics.

4. The last one…before I switch off.

I have mentioned it many (many) times now. But I feel it is the most productive time of my day — when I feed my mind the cud to chew on overnight.

The last unfinished strand that I leave for the next morning to pick up. I have noticed that when I have 30–40% pulp ready in the night, I am raring to juice it up the next morning.

As marinating meat with papaya tenderizes it, an overnight half-baked idea streamlines the (writing) mornings.

How does this help:

• Having a pick-up point gives a great start to the morning. Slimming down the chances of the dreaded ‘writer’s block’ showing up.
• And when the start is great, we all know how well the rest of the day goes. Right?

It’s like voluntarily activating a poison ivy rash that you must scratch.

5. Collecting good images for stories.

This one may not apply to you if you are not a stickler when it comes to images, like me.

I like my images to resonate with the emotion of my story, have an aesthetic element, and also have a story going around. Needless to say, I take a hell of a lot of time to zero down on one.

And I get clammy when I am on a deadline and the images just don’t fit right. So, I do this.

I am a Pexles fan. Every day (usually when I wait for my daughter’s school bus) I scroll through its home page that showcases the trending and most-liked images. I pick some that relate to my topics and store them in ‘My Collection.’

[Click on the heart (you must be logged in).]

The same goes for Unsplash, Freepik, and a couple of other sites.

Why does this help:

• I use a lot of images for my work, and having them handy surely saves me a LOT of time.
• Saves my life when I am sitting ass-crunched on a tight deadline. Phew!

It is the embodiment of — a stitch before time saves nine.

Catch of today:

Finally…

I always say writing is like making biryani…layers of layers of ingredients going in to make it mind-smackingly delectable to consume.

And small preparations like this make an elaborate process way simpler. And manageable.

Micro? Yes. But these small habits have helped me manage my sometimes crazy writing routine and turn it into a much more doable thing.

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