Overcome Writers Block & Produce More Effective Articles

Do find yourself staring at your computer screen for long periods of time, caught in the unforgiving grip of writers block, begging for mercy in the form of a single creative idea to serve as a seedling for a single blog post or article?

Do you find it’s taking more and more time to come up with an effective article?

Whether you’re a blogger or freelance writer, you probably find yourself needing to write effective articles with minimal time available. If your writing happens to be your full time job, you really want to make full use of your time and try to write more articles in less time. Right?

Consider these tips when you find yourself faced with writers block and minimal time.

1. Close All Applications & Windows

One of the biggest time sucks can be a window open for chat, a window for Facebook, one for email, another for Twitter, etc. – talk about distraction overload! If you’ve ever installed any software program at all, you’ve likely encountered the command that requires you to close other applications before installing. The same concept should apply when you sit down to write an article. Close the chat client first. This is probably the one which eats up most of your time. Next, close your email client. I promise the world won’t end.

Don’t have any other applications open aside from the window you use to write your article. Refrain from opening any applications when you are writing your article. Make a point to only open your browser when you want to look for a reference of some kind, but close it again once you’ve found what you’re looking for.

2. Conduct Research Before Writing

It is always better to do your research before you begin writing. Quality will shine through in an article that has been thoroughly researched. By doing research, you will be able to compose your article with ease.

3. Schedule

Adhering to a schedule will help you save time. Set a time limit for every aspect of your article. Perhaps allocate 30 minutes for writing the article itself. Allow 10 minutes for searching an image. Allow yourself 10 minutes for coming up with a catchy title. Take each aspect in time segments and within an hour you should have yourself a glowing masterpiece. Don’t forget to proofread your article. So often, a masterpiece can turn to garbage with the simple oversight of a thorough once over.

4. Edit, Edit, Edit

Once you have completed the writing portion of your article you’ll want to add all the buttons and bows that wrap it up into a more attractive package. Add your carefully selected image, and take a few minutes to tidy up the formatting with proper block quotes and text styles that make your article more scannable.

Writing quality articles in short time is not the easiest of tasks but if you plan ahead, prepare yourself and stick to a more structured process you’ll be cranking out quality pieces and back to Facebook before you know it.

Image via stock xchg


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4 responses
  1. BrownEyed Avatar

    As much as I appreciate the pointers and advice, I am afraid I don’t agree with pointer # 1. It is because while I am stuck in a writers’ block, I find a new idea from such other sources (not a chat window, but other open browser windows and blogs). It may be a nuisance for many but has saved me from staying uninspired many a times. 🙂

    Thanks for the share!

    -BrownEyed

  2. Kathryn Lang Avatar

    You might need to turn off sound when you are trying to focus. The notices from IM or email can make you HAVE to break away from what you are trying to do.

    I think a schedule can be the most important. Get in the habit of writing every day and soon your mind expects to write during that time every day.

  3. Carol Avatar

    One of my favorite tricks I learned at a Reynolds Center seminar. If you’re blocked on a story you’ve reported, that includes research and interviews, put all your notes aside.

    Then write without notes, write without quotes, and write without attribution. That’s right — forget who said what or their exact wording. Just start writing the story, telling the most important points. Just leave blanks for names and rough in the quotes based on what you remember.

    Once you’ve created a rough draft, you can go back through your notes to check facts and name spellings and clean up exact quotes to match what they said.

    This technique really frees you from getting bogged down in your notes and helps you write fast!

  4. Shivam Avatar

    I am a freelance writer and I want to share with you guys what I follow while writing articles for my clients.
    Before starting the article I always open multiple word docs, so if I am writing on a particular topic and in the middle of the article if I get some other idea which can be used in writing the other article, I put that point on the other word doc and this helps me in completing 2 to 3 articles at once without stopping.
    Hope this idea help you guys 🙂

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