A Guest Post by Bamboo Forest of Pun Intended
What’s the ultimate hack for writing productivity?
Set a timer… folks.
There’s no better way to plug into your writing and destroy distractions than by setting a timer and telling your mind youíll write for the allotted time you’ve chosen. It works like Jedi magic.
And come to think of it… Magic is what you need in an online world where you’re distracted every couple seconds.
When you set a timer and seriously commit yourself to writing for a duration of time you’ve chosen, you’ve just single handedly put yourself in a bubble of kick-ass. It’s actually the place I feel most at home.
Nothing can touch you here. Twitter? It’s got nothing on you. Nothing. Instant messenger? Sorry! You ain’t welcome around here, kid. The phone? If you put it on silence for the duration of time your timer’s ticking, I can assure that when your writing time ends, you’ll be looking sharper than ever and no harm will come. You’ll have accomplished something great. You can check your phone when you’re done, OK?
Nothing Grows Our Blog Like Great Writing
There’s a lot of little ways to tweak your blog. Lots of little tidbits, nuggets and sprinkles you can glean from blogs on blogging that may help you…†a little.
But let’s get real, shall we? None of that, absolutely none of it is really going to grab the attention of prospective readers like prose that grabs them by the throats and keeps them there until the last line has been read. Great writing is the number one ingredient that gets our blogs out there and admired.
Let’s do this.
So my advice if you’re strapped for time as many of us surely are: Use the time you have almost exclusively on creating awesome content.
Here’s what Leo Babauta, who knows a little bit about this, has to say about what worked for him while he was working full time and doing freelance writing on top of it:
“What’s the most important thing a blogger can do to grow his blog and readership? Write great content. Not add links or widgets to the sidebar, not check stats, not reading or commenting other blogs, not even responding to comments or email. Writing great content. That’s by far the most important thing you can do.” [Bold emphasis mine]
And it’s not like you have to complete a full post in one sitting. Nonsense. You could set a timer for 15 minutes a day of hard, focused writing and by the end of the week finish a†solid post or two. Using a timer for our writing sessions forces us to put everything aside and write like maniacs until it sounds. It makes the little time we do have, laser focused. And even if we do have a fair amount of time on our hands, it helps us stay miles away from the distractions that bombard us, keeping us honest.
So yeah… We can say we’ll write five minutes from now and we just might. We can say we’ll write after we’ve eaten supper and… well… maybe we will.
Or…
We can be real. We can be writers. We can do this. We can set a timer, commit ourselves to working non-stop until it sounds and feel proud at what we’ve accomplished. That’s what I’m talking about. You with me on this?
After all this talk about using a timer to generate focused, timely writing, you’d think I’d offer you a resource to use right about now? Wouldn’t ya? Of course I will, child.
Online Timer for Writers
I’ve recently given birth to a little, humble site with a timer you can freely use 7 days a week, 365 days a year (Even during all major holidays). This site was spawned by me, one of your fellow and very, very obsessed writers. Setting a timer has worked wonders for getting me to write and to increase my general productivity and it’ll probably help you enormously as well.
So if you want to kill procrastination and plug into a time frame where you do nothing but write, I recommend you head on over to my little site, Tick Tock Timer.
Oh… and when you hear the gongs going off… after you’ve just finished writing a kick-ass blog post that’ll put massive smiles on the faces of many… I want you to party like it’s 1999.
Bamboo Forest writes for Pun Intended. He’s created an online timer that makes bloggers ridiculously productive.
Dude, Pomodoro!
It’s basically a whole GTD movement and idea that focuses on just what you’ve described here, setting a timer and using absolute focus in spurts of 25 minutes (or whatever you want) broken up by short breaks to get things done. They’re are also a ton of nice little apps for your desktop, iphone etc… that support it. Thanks for the article.
@ Malcolm: Glad you enjoyed it.
Completely agree with the time limit/constraints advice. I would add, however, that the hardest part isn’t setting the limit, but harnessing the sense of focus and urgency when the limit is self-set (and therefore vulnerable to self-RE-setting), as opposed to having an outside limit (i.e., a deadline for that freelance article).
@ Jeffrey: I find that once the limit is set, one’s focus naturally increases. When we decide ahead of time how long we’re going to invest on a particular project, motivation seems to creep up out of nowhere.
Humanity’s productivity has increased tenfold since Tick Tock Timer went live.
Fo shizzle.
@ Flying LlamaFish: Indeed it has.
I just don’t think this is the “ultimate” hack. Ultimate, by definition, means the final, greatest. I don’t think this hack is. It’s good, but not the greatest.
@ Eric: It’s no different than a headline that says, “The Only Guide to Happiness You’ll Ever Need.” You’ll probably need more than just that guide, but the point is to get as many people as possible to come check your post out. That’s what a good headline does anyways.
@ Bamboo forest – And that headline is misleading as well. How many times do you want someone to click on a post, and then get disappointed? My goal is to be upfront and honest with my readers. Anyways, over the top hyperbole has made words like “ultimate” and “ever” meaningless. People know they aren’t being used the way they are supposed to be used.
I know Im going against the blogging grain here, but its just my opinion.
@ Eric: I highly doubt anyone’s going to be disappointed when clicking on my headline and reading this article. They’re not going to split hairs on the precise meaning of ‘ultimate’; they probably don’t care. In fact, if they enjoy the article and find it useful, they’ll probably appreciate that I crafted a headline that compelled them to check it out. Otherwise, they may have opted not to.
I appreciate your perspective on this issue.
Right, I guess we can never say how many readers would or would not have clicked on the post based on the headline. I know my posts for Write to Done have been fairly mundane, but very successful. They also both explained what my post was about.
My analogy would be to the “please RT” request on Twitter. Asking your followers to RT a post can get you a lot of RTs. But asking them to RT every other tweet, as opposed to the very special tweets, you’ll start getting less results. For me, I like to save superlatives for superlative occasions.
* meant to say my titles were mundane.
Love it. Just the push I need it!
@ Rose: Glad to hear it. And enjoy :-)
Bamboo,
To define a timeline to create great content is a good start. I would add that in order to creat great content, what you require is to write about your passion.
All the best,
Boris
Another way is to turn off the television — or just limit ourselves. I limit myself to two hours a week. Those are the shows I feel like I can’t miss! A second way is set a word-limit for yourself. Ray Bradbury writes 2,000 words a day. John Grisham, just one page.
@ Boris: I agree that writing about your passion contributes to writing well.
@ Jay: Television can be a huge distraction. Limiting it can help one use more of their time working on their goals. Agreed. And I like that you don’t have an all or nothing approach with it.
I can see how fulfilling a daily word limit can help a writer to write. One could even combine both techniques.
I need to start allotting a set time each day only to write. Far too often I find myself tweaking my blog design or working on other projects when I initially sat down only to write.
I think setting a timer for my writing sessions will help me stay focused on pumping out an article or two.
Thanks for reminding me about a concept that I know in my head but rarely actually practice. I’ve always had a short attention span, but the age of the Internet has made it even shorter, I do believe.
I haven’t set a timer, but I do have a set time to write. It is the only way I could stay focus and minimize distractions. I brainstorm my ideas on the go, but the writing comes only at focused times.
@ Dan: Give it a try. I think it will be very beneficial for you.
@ Julie: The internet can be one big distraction.
@ Marci: Sounds like an effective method.
I’m seconding Malcolm’s notion of using a Pomodoro based timer like FocusBooster.
It’s free and pretty darned slick!