Having writer’s block? Don’t worry – it happens even to the best of writers. Copywriters, freelancers, bloggers, authors; no one is exempt from the frustration of being out of words. In such times, it is important to remain collected and be forgiving to yourself. Some recommend taking a break, while others focus on practices that can help them regain their focus and productivity.
Unfortunately, not everyone has the luxury of time for breaks. After all, deadlines are the worst enemy of most writers. If you need to beat the clock and the writer’s block at the same time, here are five of the best productivity tools you can use:
#1. Brainstorming for Ideas
Bloggers and content writers know that coming up with compelling content ideas is not as easy as it sounds. It is a time-consuming process that may drain a writer’s energy before he even gets started. However, why come up with your content ideas, if you can crowd-source them?
MyBlogU is a content marketing platform that can help you extract content ideas from its online community. It works by letting you request for content ideas from qualified members who are dedicated to developing an idea, making sure that each idea is unique and in-depth.
Additionally, you can get other members to be actively involved with your project. This way, you can receive valuable feedback, suggestions, and other useful information that can improve the finished article. The community can also provide you with valuable resources and quotations that can help you write a solid piece. To empower your article, you can also access MyBlogU’s media library for images, infographics, and other forms of digital content.
#2. Planning Ahead
You may have an idea on what you want to write, but after a while, you may still be staring at a blank page — perhaps a few incoherent sentences if you are lucky. One doesn’t simply sit down, decide to write, and end up with shareworthy content in the process. If you want to achieve great writing, then you need to incorporate some detailed planning.
This is why you need to prepare your editorial calendar ahead of time to make sure you never run out of great topics to write. Not only will this sustain your productivity, in the long run, but it will also help you make time for other things, be it for recreation or other marketing activities.
CoSchedule is a comprehensive marketing editorial calendar tool that can help you with this. Whether you are preparing a script for a YouTube video, next week’s blog post, or your very first eBook, this tool can help you plan for those in a single place. All you need to do is to add those tasks to the drag-and-drop calendar so you can manage them visually and more efficiently.
CoSchedule also integrates with WordPress as well as various social media networks. This is a huge advantage if you are a blogger who also caters to your social followers. It streamlines the entire process, saves time, and keeps you ahead of everything.
#3. Get Rid of Distractions
Writing can be a pleasure to some, but it can quickly turn into a drag especially if it is seen as workload. As a writer, you should never let your work suck the joy out of the activity. However, let’s face it – the interface in most word processing applications are far from inspiring. In most cases, they make writing so tedious that the writer is enticed to procrastinate to keep their sanity in check.
Bear in mind that procrastination and the writer’s block go hand in hand. Both of them fuels the other and can be a force to be reckoned with if left unchecked.
Apart from keeping your workspace distraction-free, you can eliminate procrastination by using a more inviting word processor. Writer– a Google Chrome app – is one of the top contenders for this purpose. It offers an elegant user interface that can be customized to suit your preferences. It also comes with a night mode that shifts the background color to black – perfect for writing in low light conditions. Moreover, if you are used to working in coffee shops, you can take advantage of the “coffee” feature, which plays a loop of coffee shop white noises.
#4. Automate Editing
At the end of the day, the success of your writing career boils down to the quality of every piece you submit. This is why proofreading is an essential aspect of writing. It allows you to spot spelling and grammatical errors that spell-checkers may miss. Additionally, it gives you the opportunity to improve the readability of your work by revising some areas.
You can speed up this process using a proofreading tool like RobotDon. All you have to do is paste your article in the online editor and hit ‘Go’. The interface will help you spot and review different factors that affect the quality of your work, including sentence length, plagiarism, and other readability concerns.
For example, you can go to the ‘Specific Quotas’tab to access an organized view of readability issues that demand your attention. You may also check your article for fluff by going to the ‘Wateriness’tab. Also, to help you optimize the length of your sentences, you can review the ‘Rhythmic Monotony’ tab.
It is also worth mentioning that RobotDon features comprehensive text analysis. You can check information such as the number of unique words and the frequency of keywords. This is useful if you want to incorporate
#5. Improve Your Writing
Although you can always count on automated tools to improve your written works, you should also improve your writing skills if you want to overcome the writer’s block for good.
A good place to start is to observe how your audience responds to your writing. Figure out which topics they prefer and check if they read the entire article or stop at a certain point. This will help you find areas that need improvement. So if you want to monetize your content, this will also help you identify the best spot for essential content elements – like a CTA or affiliate link.
To do this, you need a content marketing platform that includes content analytics such as SumoMe. It measures how far an average audience goes before they stop reading. Just remember that your audience may have lost their interest at a point before stopping. For example, if your audience stops halfway through your article, then you should focus on adjusting the entire 50% — not just the middle part of your article.
Take note of your mistakes and use it to develop your writing skills and habits. Remember that finesse is the perfect antidote for the writer’s block. It can provide you with guidelines that you can easily follow for future projects.
Conclusion
Remember that the writer’s block is not something that can be fully eliminated. But if you plan ahead, automate, and leverage tools to improve your work, then you should be able to remain consistent concerning quality and productivity.
Images: Author’s Own
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