A Practical Guide to Becoming a Faster Blogger
Whether you’re a blogger for hire or a business trying to build up your online presence, the faster you can write/blog, the more profitable it will be for you. For professional bloggers, blogging fast means you can take on more projects and make more money. For business bloggers, it means that you have more time in the day to run your business, get more clients, and increase your bottom line.
When I first started blogging, it would take me quite a while to crank out a decent post. But over time, I’ve learned some strategies that help me write quicker without sacrificing quality (I hope…you can be the judge of that though).
How do I do it?
1. Practice. Practice. Practice.—A sprinter doesn’t get any faster without practicing running. As a writer, you will never write faster if you don’t write often.
2. Outline posts before you start writing—Here’s how I started the post you’re reading right now. I wrote the headline, created the main bolded points for the list, and then filled in the rest. Doing that gave me direction and kept me focused.
3. Set a timer—A simple egg timer can keep you focused on your writing. You can even make a game out of it. Set the timer to however long you want to give yourself to write a blog post, and see if you can get it done before time runs out. Even if you don’t beat the buzzer, I can promise that it will have helped you focus and eliminate any distractions.
4. Find your most productive writing time—I’m a paid writer by profession, so I have to be able to stay productive all day long. But the average person isn’t like this. The typical business blogger has certain times of the day where he or she is more productive and more focused. Figure out when your best writing time is, and try to schedule your blogging accordingly.
5. Come up with ideas ahead of time—For me, figuring out what I was going to blog about always used to take up a lot of time. Now, I jot down ideas throughout the day as I get them. I plan ahead, so that when it comes time to blog, I know what I’m going to write about.
6. Shut out the distractions—Admit it. You get distracted when you write blog posts. Maybe you check your email, look at your Facebook, or check your Twitter feed. It happens to the best of us. But if you’re serious about being a more productive blogger, you have to shut out the distractions and focus solely on this task.
7. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes—The biggest thing that used to slow down my writing was that I’d obsess over every word I wrote. I’d type a sentence, read back over it, rework it, read over it again, and so on. It took forever. The truth is, I’m a better, more relaxed writer when I just put my head down and start typing nonstop. Write now. Edit later.
8. Remember the anatomy of a paragraph—Look, I’m usually the guy who preaches to ignore what your grammar teacher taught you in school, but there are exceptions. Think about what you were taught a good paragraph contains: a topic sentence explaining the main idea of the paragraph, supporting details, and a closing sentence that concludes the idea or leads readers into the next paragraph. Not every paragraph has to be perfect, but focusing on this will keep your writing tight and focused.
Would you consider yourself a fast blogger? What’s your secret?
October 13th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Excellent list.
I find that when I'm writing blog posts I tend to think in bullet points. Not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.
October 13th, 2010 at 10:32 am
Speed is time and time is money, but more important than speed is quality and consistency. Of course if quality and consistency takes you too long, you need to speed up.
October 13th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Who wants to read an incomplete post because the writer was playing beat the clock.
It's quality that counts, not speed.
October 14th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Before we sit on the table, everything we need to write is already in our heads. We just sit down to put it into writing, not to sit there thinking what we should write.
October 15th, 2010 at 8:53 am
@thewisemensay–I don't think I ever said to post incomplete content? I said to use the timer as an exercise to help you focus and write more quickly. I also specifically said "I’ve learned some strategies that help me write quicker without sacrificing quality"
October 18th, 2010 at 3:25 am
Shut out the distractions – the most interesting and important thing. It happens many times that you might get distracted by some messenger ping of incoming mail. that leads you to breaks in the writing and eventually you loose perfect control over the post!
October 19th, 2010 at 3:03 am
I'd also add point 9. "Don't be afraid to look for more brain food in your spare time: be it some technical excerpt, some glamorous issue or merely browsing your competitor/colleague work may really help a lot, both in being updated and in figuring out ahead of time what you should write to get the most in the least (time)." and point 10. "Consider loving your work It may seem the most banal of them all, but once you really love it, working overtime doesn't count and you'll find you are constantly practicing and thinking about how to improve; in other words, if you are doing it just because you are in desperate need of money or because you are still trying to figure out what to do with your life, you are doomed to be a sub par writer, both in speed and quality".
It took me about 4 minutes to write it all; not being a native english speaker, I call it a good shot to begin with
!
October 19th, 2010 at 8:37 am
I'd also add point 9. "Don't be afraid to look for more brain food in your spare time: be it some technical excerpt, some glamorous issue or merely browsing your competitor/colleague work may really help a lot, both in being updated and in figuring out ahead of time what you should write to get the most in the least (time)." and point 10. "Consider loving your work It may seem the most banal of them all, but once you really love it, working overtime doesn't count and you'll find you are constantly practicing and thinking about how to improve