If you’re anything like me, you know how hard it can be to stay on task. When you work for yourself, focusing can be difficult. I can easily get distracted and start doing something, anything, to avoid sitting down and typing up my thoughts. But when you need to get some writing done, be it a blog post or a newsletter, I’ve got some tips to keep you focused.
Give yourself a deadline.
Just because you don’t have any external pressure to finish on time doesn’t mean you should procrastinate. Sit down at the beginning of the month and plan out your blog schedule. Once you have clear goals in mind, try to get through the first month without any delays. Then do the same for the next month, and the next. Write on your calendar or set up an appointment in your planner. Better yet, tell a friend or a colleague about your timeline. You will feel more motivated to finish up your blog posts if you know that other people are counting on you.
Start with a list.
What are you planning to write about? You might start out with some vague or abstract ideas, and that’s okay. But spend a few minutes to focus and get specific. The more you nail down what you want to write about, the easier it will be to write out your blog post or newsletter. I dedicated a notebook to blog ideas, because writing on paper helps crystallize my ideas. I usually start out with one word, and then I can grow that idea into three or four topics that relate both to the original thought and to each other.
Once you’re ready to start writing, make a real effort to write without interruption. Put your phone away, shut the door, and ask people to leave you alone so you can spend 30 minutes writing. You may not end up using everything you’ve written, but it will be much easier to stay in the zone. Answering emails or taking a few seconds to surf the internet will sabotage your motivation, and ultimately it will take you much longer to finish the job.
Don’t stop to edit.
It’s much easier to go back to the beginning and edit your entire post rather than re-reading your sentences and editing on the go. Obviously, if you mistype a word you should go back and correct it, but try not to stop writing. Often, when you get mired in editing one paragraph or sentence over and over again, you can become tired of the whole process. This results in a very well-written opening paragraph but a less-successful conclusion, because fatigue sets in and you just want to be finished with the whole thing.
Find your structure.
When you write blog posts on a regular basis, you begin to see a structure and a style in your writing. Once you’ve got a few blog posts or newsletters, sit down and take a look at them. What does your opening paragraph look like? Do you like using bullet points, or do you prefer full paragraphs? How do you sign off? Once you have established a structure, you can easily insert new ideas into the same format. You will spend less time figuring out how to write and more time focused on the ideas you’re putting out.
Writing doesn’t always come easily, even when you write for a living. But hopefully these tips can help you stay on track and get your blog posts or your newsletter done. And if you’re still having a hard time writing, you can always get in touch with me and I can do the writing for you.