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Abstract

d="32a9">Tons of articles are here about increasing your productivity. How day batching made someone else a gazillion dollars on this platform.</p><p id="6d93">How another mega-star writer generates content ideas and never, ever runs out of them.</p><p id="938e">There are formatting tutorials, editing advice, headline cheatsheets, and writing tool recommendations.</p><p id="e1dc">All that advice has its place, but in my own experience, a simple outline is the most underrated and neglected tool there is for writers.</p><h1 id="9b25">Here’s why</h1><p id="c442">Even the best of writers can fail without a good outline to reference. If you’re like me, you’ve got a ton of things bouncing around your brain cells all day, every day. Most writers are like this, turns out.</p><p id="af04">It’s easy to lose track of your thoughts. You can forget where you read that one piece of research. Write a whole rant instead of an article. Think of 5 more ideas you <b><i>could </i></b>write about. Get distracted by an internet rabbit hole of other articles. Now you’ve wasted time on top of it all.</p><p id="0e98">Eventually, discouragement cre

Options

eps in.</p><p id="f947"><b>Nobody wants all that.</b></p><p id="00e8">Now you might be saying, but that’s so simple it couldn’t possibly solve all these problems. It’s true that an outline is a rudimentary tool, but you know what they say — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.</p><h1 id="d889">How to do it</h1><p id="8514">Choose your method of writing first. Are you using the problem, agitate, solution (PAS) method? Or are you relying on an introduction that hooks your audience?</p><p id="39cd">Decide that first. Then you can use any of these 3 tools:</p><ul><li>Dynalist</li><li>Workflowy</li><li>UV Outliner</li></ul><p id="f34b">Best of all, they’re free. (Personally, I like Scapple, but it isn’t free.)</p><p id="b752">Any of these tools have powerful capabilities that will allow for organizing your thoughts, creating lists, and storing research links (goodbye to all those open tabs, eh?)</p><h1 id="65a4">Stop wasting your time</h1><p id="1132">And start planning every article from here on out. I promise it’ll save you time, keep your ideas from getting lost in the gray matter, and keep the words flowing.</p></article></body>

Are You Outlining Your Articles? Neglecting This Step is Causing You To Fail

Here’s how to do it and free tools to use

Here you are, staring at a half-written, beautifully formatted article.

The dog barks at the UPS delivery, the washing machine beeps, you feel your Apple watch buzz with another notification.

You’ve been sitting here for hours. Knowing what you want to say, hammering out a bunch of stuff, only to find it’s more of a disjointed rant.

The ideas are here. If only you could get them out.

Maybe I should quit, you think.

Does this sound familiar? Turns out, you’re probably neglecting one simple fix.

Think about it

Tons of articles are here about increasing your productivity. How day batching made someone else a gazillion dollars on this platform.

How another mega-star writer generates content ideas and never, ever runs out of them.

There are formatting tutorials, editing advice, headline cheatsheets, and writing tool recommendations.

All that advice has its place, but in my own experience, a simple outline is the most underrated and neglected tool there is for writers.

Here’s why

Even the best of writers can fail without a good outline to reference. If you’re like me, you’ve got a ton of things bouncing around your brain cells all day, every day. Most writers are like this, turns out.

It’s easy to lose track of your thoughts. You can forget where you read that one piece of research. Write a whole rant instead of an article. Think of 5 more ideas you could write about. Get distracted by an internet rabbit hole of other articles. Now you’ve wasted time on top of it all.

Eventually, discouragement creeps in.

Nobody wants all that.

Now you might be saying, but that’s so simple it couldn’t possibly solve all these problems. It’s true that an outline is a rudimentary tool, but you know what they say — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

How to do it

Choose your method of writing first. Are you using the problem, agitate, solution (PAS) method? Or are you relying on an introduction that hooks your audience?

Decide that first. Then you can use any of these 3 tools:

Dynalist
Workflowy
UV Outliner

Best of all, they’re free. (Personally, I like Scapple, but it isn’t free.)

Any of these tools have powerful capabilities that will allow for organizing your thoughts, creating lists, and storing research links (goodbye to all those open tabs, eh?)

Stop wasting your time

And start planning every article from here on out. I promise it’ll save you time, keep your ideas from getting lost in the gray matter, and keep the words flowing.