How To Speedwrite and Increase Your Productivity

Look! On the page! It's a bird! It's a plane! Faster than a speeding bullet… it's Super Writer! 

Sounds great, right? Unfortunately, being Super Writer isn’t completely realistic. While all writers dream of getting a manuscript down in one go, it’s never actually like that — in fact, the writing process is often long, requiring a lot of thinking time and numerous revisions. 

But that doesn’t mean it’s time to give up! Nearly everybody who writes wishes they were able to write much quicker than they do, and the good news is that speed-writing is possible with hard work — and some tricks up your sleeve. Here are 12 tips to get more words on the page in less time. 

1. Write at the right time 

In other words: determine your “golden hours” for writing. No one writer is the same, so the first step to speedwriting is understanding how you write — and when you work best. 

Learn to become in tune with your own rhythm and lifestyle choices, so that you use your energy wisely and work at times that are optimal for you. While some people might swear by an early start, if you’re not a morning person, well… you’re just not a morning person! Others who have kids may want to capitalize on kid-free daycare times to write. Whenever your own productivity peak is, find it to maximize your writing output. 

2. Make a basic outline first

Going into writing with nothing planned is likely to be a daunting prospect — and the one thing you don’t want to do is feel overwhelmed before you’ve even started your novel. For this reason, drawing up a skeleton structure before you get down to putting words on a page is going to help the words flow more smoothly. This goes for everything from a book to a blog post. Instead of pausing to spend an hour deliberating over your character’s next move or the next point you want to make, you’ll know exactly what’s coming.

3. Leave the editing for later

We’ve all been there — laboring over a sentence that we just can’t seem to get right. By-and-large, these deliberations drain us of our time and distract us from our ultimate goal: getting words on the page quicker. 

Try not to spend more than 10 to 15 seconds on any corrections. While all great work is subject to great editing, it’s much better to treat this as a distinct process that comes after you have your entire first draft nailed...

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