Being productive is challenging for me if there isn’t an immediate reward involved. It’s a sad but true fact I realized in 2014 when I sat down to write and self-publish Famous! How to Be the Star of Your Show for teen girls.
Having a book deal and check in the mail can motivate anyone (in theory) to get off her or his butt and write an as-yet-untitled game-changing self-help tome.
But self-publishing was all about me setting a schedule and pace for getting Famous! from just a Word doc in my computer to a final product that I could hold in my hand. The prize was months away, so I forced myself to bang out an outline, create a daily writing goal and then go chapter by chapter, in no particular order.
Honestly, productivity is a constant battle for me and sometimes I’m kicking procrastination’s butt like I’m possessed by boxer Layla McCarter and some days…um, not so much.
After some serious self-reflection and too many handfuls of barbecue chips, I’ve realized that it’s necessary for me understand what each project requires (example a 700-word profile vs. ghostwriting a 60,000-word young adult novel) and create a plan to complete it by working backward. It’s a skill I’d learned from being a managing editor at XXL magazine, and there were way more moving parts than just words on a page. (Need some help getting started? Download my guide.)
Often, I look to my mentor-in-my-head Marie Forleo for advice. One of her gems encourages folks to set a deadline and tell people about it. Example: I’m selling my children’s book at the Brooklyn Book Festival on September 18, 2016. Guess what happens? Yep, people start asking about your children’s book every month or so and it pushes you to buy a table at the festival.
The last thing you want is to come up short or have pitiful excuses about why you didn’t finish your project and sell it at the fair.
I take this to heart and tell people about my new stuff at dinner parties, on social media and whenever someone asks: What are you working on?
Sharing my next move scares the crap out of me, but it also holds me accountable for delivering on the goods.
Here are some tips you can try to be more productive:
Compose your story via longhand: Translation? Break out your notebook and favorite pen. Okay, so you’re frowning like that’s soooo 1988. True, but it has its perks, such as:
1) You’re free from social media and email distractions.
2) You’re less likely to worry about writing a perfect story; the words may flow a bit more smoothly.
3) You’re following in the footsteps of your favorite, award-winning writers, including J.K. Rowling, Joyce Carol Oates, Truman Capote, Amy Tan and even writer/director Quentin Tarantino. Fact: Grindhouse was written in a notebook.
Break it up: Identify the writing project and then slice the task into manageable chunks. How many words is it? Do you need secondary interviews? How much research is involved? What’s the word count? Is it a Q&A?
Once the interview is done, it has to be transcribed. You can do this yourself or hand it over to the pros at Rev.com who’ll turn your interview around in about 24 to 48 hours, for a small sum of $1 per minute.
This frees you up to listen to the audio and cherry pick the best parts of the conversation for your piece. Later you can write the intro based on the major points covered in the 2,000-word Q&A.
Set a daily writing goal: This tip is mainly for books. You cannot complete a 100,000-word sci-fi novel in one week. (Yeah, sci-fi much longer than a regular novel.) Look at your deadline and set a realistic daily writing goal to complete the first draft and revise it before sending it to your editor.
Most writers subscribe to 1,000 words per day, but Buster Benson is cool with folks whipping out 750 words. But I love, love, love about 750words.com is that you can learn about yourself in the process, like how many times you took breaks during a given time period.
Begin with the end in mind: When is this thing due? Two days or two weeks? Plug the deadline on your calendar and work backward from that date. Reserve time for research, pre-writing and interviews, and plan when the draft will be finished.
A deadline that’s off in the distance may make it easier to procrastinate because you cheat yourself into thinking that you have two weeks to flip a blog post about hidden food allergies for pluggedinparents.com. Don’t do that, and stop telling yourself you work better under pressure. It’s a lie.
What’s your favorite productivity tip?
