You
may not think of yourself as a professional writer, but if you're using
article marketing as part of your website's marketing plan you can
definitely benefit from approaching your writing time like a pro.
Think about it–in order to get the most out of our article marketing
campaigns we need to be submitting well-written articles regularly,
consistently, at least one per month (and maybe even more!). That means
writing, writing, and more writing!
Professional writers are literary ninjas–they write almost every day
of their lives, on a wide scope of topics, on deadline, and for a
living. If anyone has mastered how to get the most quality writing done
in the least amount of time it's professional writers.
With this premise in mind,
Study Hacks
has a great post in which they've analyzed the writing habits of
several successful non-fiction writers. The results are pretty
interesting and remarkably similar, which leads me to think that perhaps
professional writers know something that the rest of us amateurs don't.
Here's what Study Hacks discovered:
- The vast majority of the writers started their writing work in the very early morning, somewhere between 6am and 8:30am.
- Most of the professional writers chose to write in a "silent,
isolated location, free of distractions." Some even went so far as to
position their desks away from any windows, in a room that had no
windows, in a bare office, or in a garage. Some writers also preferred
an office with no phone or internet.
- Half the writers employ a morning ritual to get them started. Usually this involved coffee and reading the newspaper
What can we take from all this? See if you can apply these tips from
professional writers to your article writing time (these tips are from
Study Hacks):
- Spread out work on an assignment over several days. Coming at it fresh increases its quality.
- During these days, get up early. Probably earlier than you are used to. Say, around 7 or 8 am.
- Have a mini-ritual to jump start the day. It should probably involve coffee. Breakfast. Maybe the morning paper. Don’t take too long.
- Go to the most isolated place possible.
- To get your mind ready to think, review the last pages you wrote.
- Work for two or three hours. Then stop.
- Follow this habit regularly. Don’t write during other times. Don’t write in public places. Don’t start writing the day before.
I've actually been implementing some of these techniques into my own article writing time and have seen a huge improvement.
I started getting up earlier and starting writing right away rather
than saving writing for the afternoon. (By the way I was a bit startled
to see that some of the writers described the afternoon as "mental dead
time" for writing–that explains a lot for me!
)
What about you–do you have any special tricks or schedules to help you get your article writing done efficiently?
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