How to Increase Your Productivity as a Writer and Create Outstanding Content

The 10–5–1 Writing System: A Primer to Your Writing Success

Every morning I wake up around 5 AM to get the coffee going, let my dog out, and start writing. I have three places I sit down and write at any given time. My desk in our den, the couch in our den, or the island in our kitchen. These places seem to bring the most creative energy for me.

My morning routine recently changed because we canceled our internet at home. With the change, I no longer publish anything from home. Only from coffee shops during the day. Sometimes, I will set four or five posts on Medium or my blog, and then hit publish from my phone, but rarely.

Anyhow, with the change to my internet situation, I started to become more productive with my writing. Like 10X more productive. Since I do not have the internet to distract me, I can easily crank our two, three, or even four drafts at a time now.

Currently, my “To Post” stack in my Evernote is ten posts deep.

Before turning off our internet, I was typically “pantsing” my blog and Medium content. But now, I have an inventory of content that I can curate to when it gets published. As this has become a reality, it has helped me publish more consistently and allowed me to work on other projects.

All that to say, you won’t simply become more productive with your writing by turning off your internet.

It only happened to me because I turned off my internet. What I did was update my writing system and thanks to fewer distractions, I get a ton more writing done.

The 10–5–1 Writing System

Over the last couple of months, I created a new writing system for myself. It is a combination of several things I have learned from Jeff Goins, Ayodeji Awosika, and Shaunta Grimes. My new writing system goes like this:

1. Capture 10 ideas before you start writing.
2. Pick 5 ideas from your ‘idea’ bucket and move them to your ‘drafts’ bucket.
3. Write 1 draft and add it to your ‘edits’ bucket.

It is fairly simple, and typically what happens is after the first draft is completed, I can actually double or triple down and complete more drafts because I am not having to think of an idea that I will write about. I have a bucket full of ideas that just need to be drafted.

However, before we can walk through each step, we need some background.

The 3 Bucket System by Jeff Goins

My writing system for the last two or three years has focused on the Jeff Goins, Three Bucket System. The basic ideas here is that you have three stops for a piece of writing before it gets published:

Idea — > Draft — > Edit

In the ‘idea’ bucket, you are placing ideas to write about. In the ‘drafts’ bucket are ideas that are not being turned into written content. And in the ‘edits’ bucket, you have completed drafts that will need to be reviewed before publishing.

This is the foundation of my writing system.

10 Ideas Per Day

Over the last month, I have started writing down ten ideas per day before I start writing. Now, some of the ideas are terrible ideas. Or they may not fit into the niche I write about. However, they are ideas being captured. And I have found the more ideas I capture, the more opportunity there is to write something awesome.

Now, I have probably heard this several times before, but Shaunta Grimes had a post which she referenced Ayodeji Awosika. And both posts made so much sense to me when it came time to start my day without the internet.

Warning: Trying this exercise is hard, at first. When I started capturing ten ideas a day it was difficult. And here’s why: Ideas are like warm water from a faucet in your house that is farthest away from the hot water tank. They take time to come out.

But once they do, they start to flow at an unbelievable rate. In fact, I start my day with ten ideas and sometimes I capture another ten to twenty throughout the day.

Nevertheless, once I capture my ten ideas I move onto the next step in my system.

5 Draft Opportunities

Next in line is taking five ideas and moving them into your drafts bucket. Now, these could be from your ideas today. Or they could be ideas you have saved up. However, take your ideas and move them over.

Why do we take five ideas and move them?

First, I have found that it gives me more opportunities to write content that will go together. Sometimes, I have great ideas that might fit together in a series of posts, but they come out sporadically over a few days. When we take five from the idea bucket, we might find some connections.

Second, we need to fill the drafts bucket up because this is where you will choose what you will write about. On the days we don’t feel like writing we need to pick something and start writing anyway. When you have a full draft bucket, it makes it easier to find something to inspire you.

Third, we don’t have to finish every draft in this bucket. When I start writing something that is more of a listicle, sometimes I end up transitioning to writing a single post about one or two of the points from the list.

And so, I have some unfinished drafts left to be completed later, which increases the opportunity for later too.

Once we have five ideas in the drafts bucket its time to move on to the next step.

1 Completed Draft

Now, is the time to jump into writing bliss. This is the moment you have been waiting for to start your writing day. Sitting down with one of your ideas in the ‘draft’ bucket and writing it to completion.

I say start with one because it is always hardest to get started writing when you have a lot of ideas or draft options. Pick one and write it out. Once you have completed it, you can move it to your ‘edits’ bucket.

This is the part that increases your writing productivity though. I find nearly every morning that once I complete my first draft, my brain is turned on to full power for writing much longer.

So, the first story or article is complete and now I can jump into the draft bucket and pull out another idea.

With the new idea, it becomes easier to write a complete draft because you are already into a writing flow. And this is where one completed draft can turn into two to five completed drafts. You have entered a writing flow that is so focused you can get a ton more writing done, and typically in less time.

Start Today

If you have a hard time getting focused to write daily, start using this system now. Or, if you have a ton of ideas and you are overwhelmed with what idea to pick, start using this system today. I am convinced that you will be able to create more content, focus better, and enjoy writing more with this simple little system.

You simply need to set up a place to do it. I use Evernote, but you can capture your ideas and move them to different buckets anywhere you keep notes and your content that is in production.

But I want to encourage you, there is no time like the present to start using this system in order to crank out more awesome content than now. Especially, as we are gearing up for a new year.

Do you use a system currently to write content? How does it work? What are the pitfalls? What works well? Share in the responses below.

Jack Heimbigner is an author, creator, and coach. He lives in the country in Eastern Washington State with his wife, two daughters, and a fierce farm dog. Connect with him on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And don’t forget, he is a champion woodchopper and amateur beer brewer.

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