Your Writing Appointment

If you're a writer, you'll know that one of the hardest things to do is getting down to work. Most of us procrastinate, find things to do, daydream, or just sit and stare at the screen instead of just writing. Contrary to Fishhawk's dictum that a writer is working when he is staring out the window, when we do start to write we often find that our thoughts remain as they were before. Our production lags and, if we are on a deadline, we are forced to pull a late nighter or skip meals just to get the work done. What we need to do is to find a way to sit down and write until the article or story is ready. Here are three tips that can help us become more productive and efficient writers.

1 – Set the Alarm

Most people do not like to wake up to an alarm clock because it tends to ring just when they are in one of their periods of deep sleep. They wake up feeling tense instead of relaxed. You can also use the alarm to tell you when to sit down at your writing desk. If you consciously begin to write when the alarm rings, you will soon create a habit that will stay with you for as long as you like. Taking a page from Pavlov, you can easily associate the ringing of the alarm to your picking up pen and paper or putting fingers to keyboard.

2 – Prepare for Action

When the alarm sounds, the last thing you should need to do is to start looking for your notebook or reference files. These should be ready on your desk, just waiting for you to use them. Any changes to your daily habit could cause you to shift your attention to something else. If you are writing an article, the outline should be ready and all research complete. What you need to do now is to just pour the words from your mind onto paper or screen. In the wise words of Maupassant, you need to get in black and white as soon as possible. After the draft is ready, you can edit to your heart's content.

3 – Zero Interruptions

There are other little obstacles that can prevent you from keeping your writing appointment. This is why you should turn off the Internet before writing. Incoming mail is usually announced by an audible ping or a visually distracting pop-up. When this happens, our natural curiosity gets the best of us and we can find it hard not to read our mail.

If you can accustom yourself to start writing when the alarm rings, you will find that other related problems such as writer's block can easily fade away. Since you know that you have a writing appointment that can't be missed, you will tend to look forward to your writing sessions.