OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
Last month, I shared my own productivity tips and a whole stack from my email list as well.
Back in 2010, one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, shared eight rules of writing with readers of The Guardian.
His top tip? “Write.” His next tip was to “Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.”
Simple words that ring so true, yet, in this age of digital distraction, easier said than done.
An aspiring author’s most precious possessions are his or her ideas and imagination.
Just as important though, is time.
Without that, you simply wouldn’t be able to put pen to paper, finger to keypad, and translate what’s in your head to your readers.
And of course, in this current economic climate, unless you’re one of the lucky ones with a steady stream of passive income, then chances are, the time you spend writing, is time that could otherwise be spent earning a livelihood. Not to mention time that could be spent with your family or pursuing your interests.
As part of my work at automated online proofreader Grammarly, I spend a significant chunk of my time researching – both offline and online – how people write. And one of the main trends I’m noticing is that for writers, productivity – or put simply, how efficiently you write – continues to be a major issue.
From the plethora of online tools and resources available to help writers write better, here are a few of my top picks:
Tools that keep you focused
- For Mac users, Anti-Social is a great little tool that turns off the social parts of the internet. When you run Anti-Social, you’ll be blocked from social media distractions like Facebook and Twitter and other sites you specify. I used it to get this 600-word blog written in under 60 minutes, without being tempted to check-up on what my friends on Facebook were eating for lunch, or what my Twitter feed was saying about the latest Glee episode. In fact, the only way I could get back into my social networks was by rebooting my computer. Not something I like doing mid-blog.
- Another app that you may find useful is PomodoroApp, an online tool that utilizes the Pomodoro Technique to manage time, and improve productivity. It is based on the principle that frequent breaks help you stay mentally agile. Though it may not be for everyone, for those who need a breather to recharge in between writing, this may just be the boost you need.
- And for those of you yearning for the spartan word processors of the 80s, where writing was just you and the screen, with absolutely no embellishments or distraction, then perhaps WriteRoom could be your writing sanctuary, your zen space away from the daily clutter of your laptop.
Apps that keep you creative
- When the dreaded blank page stares back at you, and the words don’t come one after the other, then maybe you could do with some help from the people at writing.com. They’ve come up with several apps including Writing Prompts, an app for iPhone and Android that uses “sketches, words, colors, genres and different types of writing to create random bits of creative inspiration.” They’ve also included a database of 600 creative writing prompts to nudge you along whenever you need it.
- In the same vein is Character Prompts, which gives you 19 different profile characteristics filled with randomly generated information. The app includes 150 thought-provoking questions to help develop a character.
- Then there’s Writer’s Block Buster, which has a “muse and scenario generator/storage engine that allows you to create and keep track of all of the people, places, and things in your story as well as generate and keep track of the scenarios that cause the interactions between those objects that drive your plot forward.”
Apps that make an author’s work easier
- If you haven’t used any of the online note management tools widely available, like Evernote, then now is the time. Much like an ideas book, you can jot down thoughts from any compatible device, including your phone, and it synchronises with your account in the cloud. This would come in pretty handy if you, like me, often have brainwave moments while crossing the street or waiting in line for a coffee.
- And of course, there’s Grammarly, which acts like your personal grammar coach and can help you find and correct up to 10 times more mistakes than your regular word processor. Grammarly can also help you avoid plagiarism by checking your writing against more than 8 billion documents.
So there you have it, a few tools that I hope will help you in your quest to – borrowing a phrase from Neil Gaiman – finish what you’re writing.
Do you have any specific tools for productivity? Please do let us know in the comments below.
Nikolas works at Grammarly, a natural language processing startup in San Francisco. He spends most of his time researching how people are writing in an attempt to extrapolate valuable insights for Grammarly's product strategy. Beyond the occasional sports injury incurred while skiing or playing basketball, Nikolas enjoys reading, writing about and discussing the future of our beautiful language.
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1 2 Next »Hi, Great resources to check out - thanks! I think the two most important things are having great prompts (when you need them) and setting aside time without any distractions. Great to see tools that can help with both. :)
Great suggestions, Joanna. I'm checking out Grammarly today.
As for other tools:
While I'm waiting for SmartEdit to develop a Mac version, I'm using the free version of AutoCrit http://www.autocrit.com for final editing of a piece. It's like a critique-group-in-a-box (sort of). One has to use such tools judiciously but they can often flush out things from simple grammar mistakes, to redundant word usage, to lack of variation in sentence length. However, if you fix every "problem" AutoCrit flags, your unique voice will probably be transformed into that of a robot ;). In order to use AutoCrit to review longer pieces, you must register (free). For more features, you have to purchase the premium service.
Particularly useful for historical novelists, the Online Etymology Dictionary http://www.etymonline.com will help you avoid a temporal faux pas such as having your 15th century heroine "think out of the box." I use this all the time to check word and phrase validity.
I'm now using a desktop product to manage a complex timeline but there are numerous, free, online tools that can help. The one I settled on before buying a product was http://www.tiki-toki.com. It allows you to keep your timeline private (competitors charge for that privilege); it allows you to imbed weblinks, photos & videos; it will handle a relatively complex set of information; and it's easy to use.
Good stuff because distraction can be found in every digital corner these days. I use most of the tools you mentioned, and I'm particularly fond of Evernote. Photos, audio, text notes...all in one notebook of ideas. How cool is that?!
I use the Pomodoro Method for health reasons. Getting up from a sitting position and moving around for 5 minutes keeps my sacroiliac dysfunction pain at bay. And it has the added benefit of getting a lot of little things done! I can wipe down a bathroom or vacuum half the room or unload the dishwasher and get right back to work. :)
I need to store this somewhere, the link or hope I do not delete it when my E-mail account is beyond the memory limit.
"Evernote" is awesome not only for writer but also for everyone.
Anyway, Thanks for other good tools.
I wanted to mention a program LIKE Anti-Social but for Windows users. I used it during lent to stay away from social sites because I was spending too much time on them. It's free to use and there is even a NUCLEAR option lol (which I used) which blocks said sites until a certain time. You can also schedule certain times or amounts of time to use social sites. But, once those 15 or 30 min or whatever are up, the page loads and you can't get back where you were. I love the damn thing. I felt a little sad that I couldn't just stay away myself with my own will. But, yea. It happens.
It's called StayFocusd and it is an extension for Chrome. But, they also have it for Firefox as well. Easy to set up and YES it did help me control my time on Social sites.
I like StayFocusd, except there are too many settings. I also didn't like the nuke option because to me a nice reminder is good enough.
So I created a deadly simple extension myself, called Time Warp, which takes a spin on the idea. Be flexible and be helpful. Use positive affirmations to make you feel great when blocked, instead of being guilty or pressed with the strict timers. Why don't you check it out!
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/time-warp/mmmhadpnjmokjbmgamifipkjddhlfkhi
lost of helpful info (I am defiantly going to recommend this site on my blog ;)
I have been using Nanny for Google Chrome. It allows you to block websites during certain times, or even set them up to where you can only use them for certain amounts of time, like 30 minutes in a 12 hour period, 5 minutes a day total, etc.
Another one I've been using is called RescueTime, which tells you how you spend your time on your computer, not just in your browser of choice, but every website, program, whatever you might be on, tells you how much time you've spent doing whatever you've been doing, and has different categories that you can sort your activities into. Then, tells you how productive you've been over time. (For the week, I'm only at 47% productivity. Guess I need to get in gear.)
I love using the iA Writer app when I am writing up drafts. The distraction free interface is a savior for me. I'm pretty easily distracted but when I use iA Writer to make my drafts, my productivity skyrockets. There are a few writing tools in this post that I haven't got around to trying yet, but I am anxious to do so!