If you stay in the freelance writing business long enough, you’ll eventually have to renegotiate a deadline with your editor. Whether you are a freelance writer or a book author or you work for someone else, missing a work deadline is bad. I pride myself on meeting or beating deadlines, and I use that as […]
Why Freelance Writers Must Avoid Perfectionism
As a freelance writer you definitely need to do high-quality work, but you need to know when to avoid perfectionism and stop working on an assignment, a story, or a blog post and call it good enough. There’s a saying I’ve encountered many times, a variation on a Voltaire quote: “Don’t let the perfect be […]
How to End Writing Interruptions
Whenever something interrupts you from your writing, your concentration is broken and you lose time as your mind tries to recover that productive state you were in. And, of course, you also lose time dealing with whatever distracted you. Good time management is a top priority here at Productive Writers, so let’s discuss the major […]
Create Time Blocks to Do the Small-But-Important Things
As a writer you need to write: that’s usually the most important activity for your career. But there are also many other important things that support your writing, and there are many important things that you need to for the rest of your life to flow smoothly. We’ve talked about scheduling time for doing your […]
How Deep Work Makes You A Better and More Productive Writer
Applying “deep work” principles allows freelance writers and nonfiction authors to get more high-quality work done in less time, and that’s what we’re all about here at Productive Writers. So What Is Deep Work? Cal Newport’s highly successful (and highly recommended) book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World came out in […]
Secrets of Successful Meetings with Freelance Writing Clients
As a freelance writer, you will occasionally or frequently have meetings with clients. It is vital that these meetings are well planned and well run; otherwise both you and your clients will waste valuable time. I’ve had hundreds of phone meetings and face-to-face meetings with freelance writing clients. I’ve learned the importance of following the crucial […]
Freelance Writing Daily Best Practices
Note: In this post, freelance writer Mark Ellis describes how he developed his own best practices to maximize the quality and output of his freelance writing. I think we can all learn how to be more efficient and productive. Read on… A few years ago, I started freelance writing for a living. I’d waited for that moment […]
7 Myths of High Productivity
We all want to be more productive in our freelance writing businesses. Increased productivity — of the right type — leads to increased income and increased satisfaction from our work. That’s why I’m happy to share this excellent infographic from Quill.com. It does a great job laying out seven important myths of higher productivity and […]
How the 80-20 Rule Affects Freelance Writers
As a freelance writer, you have likely noticed that some of your writing and marketing activities bring outsized results, while other activities give you a very small return on the investment of your time and energy. There’s a reason for that… 80-20 Rule = The Pareto Principle The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto […]
Time Management and Productivity Twitter Hashtags
Effective time management and high productivity are very important to me and most readers here at Productive Writers. That’s why I put together this list of the most important relevant hashtags for Twitter and Google+. Using Twitter Hashtags You can use these hashtags for your own tweets and Google+ shares, or you can use them […]
Be A More Productive Writer by Deciding What NOT to Do
To be a productive writer you must be clear on what to do and why, and how to do whatever you do as efficiently as possible. But another key component of being productive is deciding what NOT to do. What do I mean? High productivity requires that you get your highest priority tasks done quickly and well. A key component […]
Why Freelance Writers Often Miss Deadlines
Hey freelancers, why do your writing projects take you all the way up to the deadline to complete, and why do you sometimes miss deadlines, even when you had plenty of time to do the project? It’s because you’re making a key time management mistake: you’re letting yourself fall victim to Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law? […]
Learn to Say NO!
Learning to say NO is a key principle of time management. Every day we are bombarded with requests large and small: from loved ones; from friends and neighbors; from potential clients, from co-workers, bosses, and employees; and from people we hardly know or don’t know at all. Frequently you should say Yes. But you must […]
8 Time Management Techniques for Successful Writers
Time management is absolutely critical to achieving success in freelance writing and in the rest of your life. Time is the great equalizer: we all have 24 hours in a day. Managing Your Time as a Freelance Writer The big question—what do we do with our time? How you spend your time — what you […]
Better Time Management through NOT Watching TV
Want to improve your time management? You watch much TV? Does it make you happier? Richer? Healthier? According to data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans on average watch 2.7 hours of television a day. (And here’s data on TV and kids. More here.) Me? I watch about 1-3 hours of television a week, […]
Why Multitasking Makes You a Less Productive Writer
Writers are often tempted to multitask because they think it’s a good time management technique, but usually it decreases productivity. But not always… What is Multitasking? It’s doing 2 or more things, supposedly at the same time. Sometimes you can do it, it’s appropriate, and it increases your productivity. However, most of the time it’s […]
How Smart Phones Can Make Us Less Connected to What Really Matters
The Boston Marathon bombings shocked and saddened me, as they did many other people in the United States and abroad. At first I wasn’t going to post this week. But as I reflected on how life can so easily and suddenly be snuffed out, I thought about how important it is for us to be […]
How Being Late Hurts Your Freelance Writing Career and Your Life
Why is punctuality such an important time management skill for freelance writers? Simple — punctuality is a sign of someone who is organized and trustworthy. If you want editors to give you freelance writing projects, or get people you care about to spend time with you, you must be on time. If you cannot keep […]
Freelancers, Would You Use This E-Mail Auto-Response?
When and how should a freelance writer use an e-mail auto-response to potential clients? What are the possible payoffs and potential pitfalls? Freelance E-Mail Auto-Response: A Real-Life Example A few months ago I exchanged a couple of e-mails with another freelance writer. Immediately after I sent her the initial e-mail, I got an auto-response back […]
Simplicity and the Successful Freelancer
Freelance writers’ lives are usually quite busy. But busy with what? Often we are busy doing things that don’t matter, or actually detract from our lives. And that’s why we should practice simplicity. To me, simplicity means simplifying life as much as practical so I have more time for my truly important goals, from business […]
How This One Simple Technique Boosts My Morning Productivity
I’ll get right to the technique: no Internet before breakfast. Let me explain. I’m an early riser. I’m in bed by 10 and I’m up around 5. I use these early hours to get a power start to the day by getting a substantial chunk of a freelance writing project done before I eat breakfast […]
Top Speed Reading Techniques to Boost Your Productivity
Speed reading is a key time-management skill that boosts your productivity. When you read faster with a high level of comprehension, you have more time for making money in your business or profession, or for doing anything else you want to do. If you are like most people, you read 250-300 words a minute. By […]
How to Minimize Interruptions So You Can Get Your Writing Done
Whenever something interrupts you from your writing, your concentration is broken and you lose time as your mind tries to recover that productive state you were in. And, of course, you also lose time dealing with whatever distracted you. Good time management is a top priority here at Productive Writers, so let’s discuss the major […]
Seven Key Steps for Finding, Evaluating, and Implementing Good Ideas
“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.” — Linus Pauling. As writers, we all want good ideas about what freelance projects to pursue and what else to write — nonfiction books, e-books, a novel. And we also want good ideas about what to do in the other important […]
Freelance Writer’s Guide to Internet Research
As a freelance writer, you need to practice good time management skills so you have high productivity, and searching the Internet without the right skills can waste a lot of your time without giving you quality results. So let’s examine the best methods for ferreting out exactly what you need from that huge mound of […]