No more struggling with a daily writing habit— if you implement these 3 important practices
“An overhead short of a woman writing in a journal at a busy table with a cup of coffee” by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
Accomplished writers such as Jeff Goins recommend a daily writing habit of 500 words or more at a time.
It is a somewhat arbitrary number, but it really does help accomplish a number of objectives:
First, it instills writing as a regular habit — which is probably the single most important attribute of developing a professional mindset as a writer.
Have you noticed that the majority of Medium’s elite contributors not only put out the best pieces — but also by far the most work?
I have no data to back this up, but I suspect the 80/20 principle rings true in this regard — which would mean 20% of Medium’s writers produce 80% of it’s content. I dare you to put an article out that proves me right or wrong.
Thus the question is not, should we focus on quantity OR quality?
It is — how can I write more in order to become a professional at my craft?
Second, 500 words also seems to be near the ideal length for a quality medium article.
3 to 4 minute reads tend to receive the most recommends from readers — which equates to roughly 500–900 word articles.
500 words is sufficient enough for building out a classy piece of writing, but still also concise enough to ensure an article has no dead weight.
How do we become adept at churning out 500 words a day?
That’s the purpose of this article.
Adopt your system
The first key to being able to let the words flow is perfecting a methodical approach to daily writing.
We need to have already marinated in what we are writing about before we ever sit down to whip out the work.
Like an efficient manufacturing plant, we need to be capable of quickly grabbing an article idea off of the mental conveyor belt and moving it along to its proper successive place in the chain.
The best way to do this is to have a stocked supply of accessible ideas that we can build on at any given time.
Jeff utilizes the 3 bucket system.
Jonathan Greene deploys this system with Trello.
My process lies somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, but the point is to adopt a practice and begin — you can always iterate until you have something that works perfectly for you.
Eliminate the burden of having to generate an idea, vomit up a bunch of content, and edit it all in one sitting.
Organize your writing schedule
As you hone in on your voice and clarify what you want to write about, you will want to assign a rhythm for the days that you write about certain topics.
If you’ve ever successfully exercised frequently, then you know that the best way to remain consistent is to have a plan in place that is easy to execute.
Take away all obstacles and excuses.
We don’t wake up and run 2 miles because we feel like it — we do so because it’s Tuesday and that’s what was on our running plan.
Writing is no different.
If you know that you’re going to be writing about writing tomorrow, and not about travel, love or life lessons, then your subconscious can go ahead and begin preparing you for peak production.
Start with an outline
Lastly, as you show up to transform an idea into a first draft, it’s wildly helpful to put a quick outline in place.
Just like the organizational systems above, the benefit of an outline is that it helps streamline your thoughts.
You might be surprised at how capable you are of producing content when you don’t have to burn brain cells on the mechanics and structure of your article.
Here is a loose sample outline of the method I’ve been developing that works for me:
Intro promise / problem
Define the problem you want to solve
Try to either explore a problem that is completely unique or offer a solution that you have not seen before)
Give beginning of solution
Give middle of solution
Give end of solution
Close with a call to action
Obviously the goal is to end up with an article that is a tad more rich and robust than the skeleton you see here — but the point is to simply get the wheels turning and ramp up the volume of your writing output.
Imagine your plan is to produce an article on Medium tomorrow.
If you already knew the topic you wanted to write about, along an the idea that you had been incubating, as well as an outline to reference — how long do you think it would take you to produce 500 words?
Pay close attention to this read and you will note that this article was the product of own adaptation of these practices.
Now that you know how to produce 500 words — go on and get it done!
Happy writing.