5 Strategies to Increase Your Writing Output
How to write more.
It’s tempting to beat yourself up when you don’t get the thing done you planned to get done.
You don’t get the pages written you wanted to write.
You don’t get the newsletter sent.
You don’t get the miles in.
You don’t get the tasks checked off the list you so wanted to cross off.
Unexpected life events interfered with my writing last week, and I didn’t get the hours to write I usually would, my output decreased.
I thought I could manage both writing and travel, but the writing didn’t happen.
Instead of giving myself the internal tongue lashing I thought I deserved, I decided to take it easy on myself because I don’t want to make writing a chore.
So I reframed my thinking. Rather than being hard on myself, I evaluated my writing habits instead.
Try not to judge your personhood when evaluating your output. Judge your practices.
Ask yourself if your practices or habits are moving you forward.
There is courage in self-evaluation, but it doesn’t have to be accompanied by psychological self-abasement for merely not getting enough accomplished.
That will bring you nothing but shame.
Cue vulnerability and shame researcher Brené Brown,
“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”
You aren’t going to make any real change if you are in the middle of a shame storm. Shame is detrimental to your self-esteem and your output.
What is far more productive, is evaluating your practices. Judge the strategies you have in place, not your personhood.
Be honest and do your best is the motto in my family.
Five ways to increase writing output
Strategic energy resets throughout the day
If you’re a writer, you know how lonely the gig is. I spend hours alone, staring at my screen.
When on a writing roll, hours vanish in what feels like minutes. I look up and realize I haven’t moved from my spot. My shoulders hunched, my lower back hurts, my eyes strained. Tired. After the fourth shot of espresso, I’m exhausted and jittery.
I can’t go all day, because I’m already spent.
So, I changed my strategy.
Now, I limit caffeine consumption and do strategic energy resets every 50 minutes instead of burning myself to the ground.
I use cupping. Not the cupping that leaves bright red circles on your back but cupping using my hands to reset my mind-body connection, get my blood, flowing, and my brain in a different frame of mind. It’s easy and quick.
This exercise shifts the mind-body connection and increases energy. It takes between one and two minutes.
Writing practice — Here is what a day of writing looks like,
- Write in the AM — as close to waking as possible.
- Get a glass of water — this is the only thing on your desk except for your laptop. Drink the whole glass or while you’re writing. Hydration is vital for energy.
- Sit at an uncluttered desk with your computer.
- Set a timer — preferably not your iPhone. Your phone should be in an entirely different room from where you are writing, so you have a distraction-free zone.
- Set the timer for 50 minutes.
- When the timer goes off, stand up.
- Take your right hand and shape into a cup. Pat your entire left arm starting at your left wrist and then go all the way up your arm ending at your left shoulder, tapping yourself with your hand, with firm pressure, hard enough to feel it.
- Switch arms.
- Cup both hands and start on your ankle and pound your cupped hands all the way up your leg, hitting yourself with a fair amount of pressure up your entire leg to your gluts moving up about an inch each time hitting every spot.
- Switch legs.
- Lastly, bend over slightly at your waist, and cup your lower back. Pound your lower back with your hands a few times, up and down, up and down. This should feel really good, even though it looks rather silly.
- Sit back down.
- Close your eyes.
- Set your intention for what you want to get done in the next 50 minutes.
- Set timer for 50 minutes and repeat.
- Start writing.
If you are serious about your time and determined to meet a goal, especially one that requires long hours behind a screen, this will give you more energy and allow you to focus longer.
It changes your hormonal state to activate your entire nervous system, which changes the lens through which you look at any problem.
Cupping is like a pit stop for a body — it’s preventative maintenance, so your mind can focus for a more extended period.
Begin with the end in mind
I started writing on Medium last July. I thought it would take longer to make money. It happened relatively fast. So I got more serious about my writing schedule.
I got a calendar to track my work.
Some writers use an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar is used by bloggers and publishers to organize content, what, and when you’ve scheduled content to go out across different platforms.
I don’t use an editorial calendar because I write when inspiration hits (not recommended). I use a Battle Board instead to organize my projects per month.
A Battle Board is a large whiteboard and hangs in your workspace. Draw 12 squares to represent each month. In each box, write the project you’re focused on for that month.
When you see your vision every day on your Battle Board, you are reminded of your dream and the goals that are the most essential to focus on each day.
Seeing your goal in writing everyday changes behavior and propels action.
You can start your Battle Board any month of the year, it doesn’t have to begin in January.
For example, in the square dedicated to March, write a goal of writing three posts per week, increase each month by one post, or by June, I want to make X amount of income from Medium. Plan out a schedule for writing time to increase the chances of hitting that goal.
Take a notebook everywhere
Most of my ideas for posts come from just living and awareness. Inspiration strikes me randomly while going about my day.
I get content ideas while listening to NPR in the car. I get ideas from podcasts my friends recommend. Or, my daughter tells me something odd her friends are doing at school (teenagers are fascinating), or I read an article, and one piece of it interests me enough to dig further.
Then I go on an information hunt and end up with not just one idea to write about but ten.
Live life.
If you are fully present and aware, inspiration will hit you, and when it does, you’ll need somewhere to write it down, so when you get home and sit in the chair, you will have plenty to write.
Multiple projects
Right now, I have about five posts I’m working on.
Occasionally I’ll get stuck on an article; it just isn’t coming. No flow. I sit in my chair and get nothing done.
I stare out the window, play with my hair, take out everything from inside my desk and organize it, but no writing comes.
I end up wasting a lot of time.
When this happens, it is best to cut your losses and switch to another project that will flow.
Good writing requires struggle, you don’t have to give up on a piece entirely, but sometimes stepping away from it and coming back later is more productive than wrestling with it for too long.
If you temporarily lose interest, it doesn’t mean you won’t get it back again.
Turn off your Wi-Fi
Getting away from social media and email while writing will increase output with concentrated focus.
One hour of intense, dedicated focus on one thing will increase production significantly. It is better not to rely on will power here. It will require more energy from you to exert willpower, save your energy for writing. When you turn off Wi-Fi, you eliminate notifications that take you out of the moment and interrupt your train of thought — your flow.
You have to go deep as a writer; if you are being bombarded with notifications from email and social media, the quality output will decrease.
Write on.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering Type A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats
