business writing: write today

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Want to write more and write faster too? Let’s discover the secrets of great writing habits, which completely eliminate procrastination and writer’s block.

Great writing habits start when you realize that writing is a process. Although others’ writing (including articles and books) may seem effortless - as though a piece of writing has been written in a single seamless session - that’s always far from the case.

If you understand the writing process, and that it’s messy and chaotic, then your own scrambled writing process will seem natural to you, because not only is it completely normal, but you’ll realize it’s essential.

You can’t create without chaos. If you try, you’ll choke your writing. Writing will be difficult, if not impossible.

Let’s look at three tips which will help you to get comfortable with chaos and to write more and faster too.

1. Set writing goals - what do you want to write?

All writing starts with setting goals for yourself: process goals, which only you can accomplish, and which you control.

For example, you may set a goal to have your writing appear in a particular magazine, or on a specific Web site by a certain date. This is a worthwhile goal, however it’s not a process goal that’s solely under your control.

A process goal would be: “By ________ (date) my essay for _______ (magazine name) is complete.”

Always set process goals - goals which you control. Yes, you can set financial goals, however the basis of all your financial goals MUST be process goals. There’s no point in setting a goal of making $250,000 a year from your writing if that goal isn’t supported by many process goals - if you don’t write enough, you won’t sell enough. It really is that simple.

So set process goals, and enter the daily tasks you must complete to meet those goals into your planner.

Break the tasks down - chunk them.

2. Separate planning, drafting and writing

Writing is a process which involves planning, drafting and writing.

Always chunk your writing process right down.

For example, I plan the articles I’ll write the following week each Sunday. I write the topics, the titles, and the outlines for all the articles.

During the week, I draft the articles further, and then I write them. Drafting for me involves a combination of free writing and mind maps. I separate the draft for a project from the writing by at least one day, often by a week.

3. Down-size your expectations while you write

I hope you have great expectations for your writing. Confidence is vital.

However, when it comes to the actual writing process, take the pressure off. All I expect from myself during a writing session is that I write - that I complete a certain number of words, and that those words are formed into sentences. That’s all.

Writing is a whole-brain exercise. It’s creative and mysterious. If you read the first draft material of any professional writer you’ll get a shock. It’s a mess, and that’s fine. The writing muse sends you hints, which you write down.

Over several sessions, a project takes shape. If you demand that your writing is like typing, that the finished project gushes from your fingertips like water from a tap, you’ll be disappointed.

If you take the above tips to heart, you’ll find writing easy. And once that happens, you’ll write more, and write faster too.

Want to write more? Angela Booth’s writing class, “Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process” is based on lessons she developed for her private coaching students.

Her ebook “Top 70 Writing Tips To Help You To Write More” shows you how to end procrastination for good and write more.

How fast do you read? Speed reading is becoming a vital skill for business people. You may have hundreds of emails and documents to read in a single day.

Although you can take a speed reading course to help you to get through more material more quickly, you can do a lot to improve your skill at speed reading with some practice.

Here are some speed reading techniques to help you to read faster:

* When you’re reading on the computer screen, take in as much as possible on the screen at a glance. Read the headline and sub-headlines to estimate whether it’s worth reading the Web page with more attention;

* When you’re reading a paper publication, use the same technique - move your eyes as little as possible, and keep reading forward, don’t look back on the page;

* If you subvocalize - that is, read silently aloud, forming the words in your mind - try to break this habit by reading faster. Force yourself to read at a higher speed. Put the tip of your tongue behind your front teeth to stop yourself subvocalizing.

Speed reading is a skill that you can develop: just push yourself to read a little faster than you do right now. It’s uncomfortable, but within a few days, you will find that you’ve established a new comfort zone. Within a month, you’ll be saving a hour or more a day, just by pushing yourself to read more quickly.

Technorati Tags: speed reading, speed reading techniques, business

I’m a great believer in researching after you write a preliminary draft of a document, and not before.

This saves time. If you research before you write, you’ll procrastinate. Perhaps the document won’t get written at all, because there’s always something more to research.

Research after you write your preliminary “talking to yourself” draft

Writing is a process: the idea, preliminary draft, research, first draft, re-vision (thinking again), next draft, and final draft.

In a preliminary draft, anything goes. Just get something onto the computer screen. Think of it as talking to yourself: “In this report, I want to show that we’ve increased sales at two of our stores because __________ etc.”

Once you’ve written the preliminary draft, you’ll know exactly what you need to research. If the thought of writing FIRST makes you shudder, that’s just a lack of confidence. Try it, just once, and you’ll always research later, not first. You know much more than you think you do.

Technorati Tags: business writing, research, drafts, thinking