So here am I, with just over 100 articles to my credit. How can I increase my productivity without sacrificing quality? This is a matter I have been giving a lot of thought to these last few months.
I left my full-time job 56 days ago and have written 71 new articles in that time as I try to build a business as a freelance copywriter.
That puts me at about 1.5 articles per day. Pitiful.
Some writers out their write ten to twenty, good articles a day. My goal is to write seven articles a day, every day. (So far I’ve the most I’ve ever written were six articles in a single day.)
Seven articles a day is almost 50 a week. I can write one extra article per week to get me at that 50 level.
50 articles a week equals 200 articles a month, which equals 2400 a year. Now that’s what I’m talking about!
So that is my goal, 50 articles a week. How do I accomplish this?
The latest discovery I’ve made is to write my articles in clusters. This past weekend, I turned off my computer screen and wrote non stop on the topic of rainmaking for professionals or people with service businesses.
When I turned my monitor on I found, in addition to many spelling and grammar mistakes, were about 2200 words on the subject of rainmaking. I printed these three pages out and let them sit for two days. Then I came back to the pages and highlighted interesting sections, drew arrows connecting one part to another, and wrote some notes in the margins.
From this I have now written three articles on rainmaking. But I allowed some other things to interrupt my writing time and believe I can write about two or three more.
So the question is, can I do this again and again and again? Can I write a raw draft, set it aside for a day and come back to it and produce seven articles? Each day?
I haven’t done it yet, but I think writing articles in clusters is the way to go. My mind simply cannot move from one topic to another on a dime. But when I try to write articles one at a time I tend to belabor certain points and try to squeeze every single thought into a single article. Bad move.
Psychology has shown that behaviors can be changed with the right tools and with measurement. I have established my baseline level of article writing. I have my 50 article-per-week goal and now I have a promising tool (clustering). Can I succeed?
Stay tuned and find out.
COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.
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