PRESS THIS TO BE A MORE PROLIFIC, PRODUCTIVE, PROFITABLE WRITER

I DISCOVERED AN EASY METHOD TO IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY AND INCREASE PROFITABILITY. I'M ALSO WRITING BETTER THAN EVER. HERE I WILL SHARE MY SECRET NOW.

Press THIS to Be a More Prolific, Productive, Profitable Writer

By Kel Amstutz
Wednesday, March 04, 2020

The practice of writing for most of us falls somewhere between an art and a business...


You want to make it a living, but you don't want to restrict your creativity.


You want fascinating projects and big fees, but you don't want too many rules.


And you want freedom to take long vacations on a whim, but you don't want to to work like a maniac for days beforehand.


It seems like an unsolvable problem, right. Wrong. I found an unlikely way to balance all of it.  And to be honest, it has made me a much happier, calmer, more productive and richer writer.


It will probably have the same effects on you.

What's the SOLUTION I found? 

Time tracking.

OK... OK, hold on a minute.

I can see that frown on your face.

Let me reassure you that time tracking is NOT the same thing as TIME MANAGEMENT.

I'm NOT going to tell you

• HOW to plan your day, or 
• WHAT productivity tips are BEST... or 
• WHICH habits you should adopt from prolific authors of the past.

It's NOT part of a gimmick, or a subscription, or a group effort.


And you DON'T have to be organized or skilled in the arena of record-keeping. (I am not either of these things!)


Yet, time tracking can BOOST your writing productivity by impressive leaps, help you earn more, and even make you feel better about your career as a writer.


Time tracking is really quite simple:

• When you sit down to write, or to research a project, or even to read and answer emails related to a project you are working on.... just press a button to start tracking your time.  
• When you are finished, press a button to stop it.  
• At the end of the day, or week. or month, you can look at the results and see how much time you've spent on that particular project, item or thing. 

Let me stop a moment and toss in a quick DISCLAIMER here - this has NOTHING to do with billing for your time.  Hopefully you've heard the common advice to NOT BILL for time spend on a project. Because in the LONG RUN, billing on a per-hour basis won't help you GROW YOUR INCOME and you'll do MORE WORK for less money.

Case in point: When I first started my life as a writer, I landed a client who needed 10 blog posts every week on a variety of different topics, at around a thousands words each.

At first, it took me two-and-a-half hours to even produce one single article.

But but the end of a month, and with hours' of practice in writing for this client, I averaged closer to 45 minutes per piece with research included.  Fortunately, I billed on a per-posting basis instead of breaking it up into an hourly rate.

This is why time tracking is SOLELY for your own information... and productivity. 

Because Ambiguity Kills Ambition

It's rare that you would ever NEED to track your writing time for anyone else... but with that said, you should ALWAYS track your writing time - but do it for YOURSELF!

This is because seeing how you really spend your time will either energize you to CONTINUE or motivate you to CHANGE.

The catalyst here is the death of ambiguity.  Nothing kills a creative career faster than too much ambiguity, where you're not 100% completely sure what to write or how to write it or how long it'll take you or even where to begin.

Copywriting legend, Gene Schwartz, the genius behind breakthrough advertising copy, had a habit of "tracking" his time. Whenever he would sit down to write, he would punch in 33:33 on a kitchen time and hit the start button. He would force himself to sit there, at this desk for 33 minutes and 33 seconds and just write. I use this advice in my own writing.

In times when I am drawing a blank, this forces me to sit there, for that set amount of time, inevitably finding the words to write something.

You see, that's the thing about TRACKING YOUR TIME. You can KICK ambiguity to the CURB!

Along with eliminating ambiguity, FOUR THINGS will happen when you start time tracking your writing: 

• You will start to see patterns in your natural productivity. Some call this your "magic-time" - or the times of day when you are MOST PRODUCTIVE.

For example, time tracking helped me realize that I am a productive person 55 minutes out of every hour if I write after 10:00 a.m.  But, if I write after 7:00 p.m., I'm productive for 35 minutes out of every hour (usually because I spend the other 25 minutes looking (or thinking) about having a yummy snack).

•  You'll gain confidence. 

Imagine the elation when you pound out copy on a project that would normally take you two hours, but you round the finish line at one hour and 10 minutes. (Just remember, you're not competing against anyone else, so do yourself a favor and be honest about your time.)

• It'll bring you more money. 

Before I started time tracking, I would fiddle over projects and wonder how long it would take me. But, once I started tracking my actual time spent writing, I could connect money to time.  So whereas, a $2,000 project felt like it would take a week to finish... the actual writing time was only a total of eight hours.  Meaning, I could finish it comfortably in two days, or one long day, which meant I could accept another $2,000 project, provided I had at least eight hours free in the coming week.  It's remarkable what you can see when you subtract your distractions.

• It can make you healthier. 

You've seen the articles about the hazards of sitting for too long.  Use your time tracker to record how long you sit during a single writing session, or how long you stand if you have a standing option.  I try to stand for a total of two hours each day, and to save myself from having one more thing to think about, I just track it with the rest of my time.

How to Time Track with Purpose

Do a quick Google search for "free time tracking software" and you will see dozens of options.  Click on a few of them and give them a once over.  Does it look intuitive? Easy? Straightforward?  Pick the one that speaks to you.  I use a free version of Toggl.com, but I have seen, and even used a few others out there that are just as reliable.



Just remember, you are not looking for a new software that you would need a manual to use. You just want something that is easy, something you can click to start, click to stop, make some quick adjustments on, and add specifics to.

To check your time efficiency for each of the projects you are working on, simply track the time it takes you to complete the project. You can break it down into research or conference calls related to the project, but I am not a huge fan of keeping it easy.  In other words, put all of that together to figure your total time on the project.

If you work on a monthly retainer for any of your clients and do multiple projects within that retainer, you can still time track on a per-project basis. But again - to make it easy on yourself, add a client tag to each of your project time entries.  Most setups will allow you to tag a client when you enter the name of a project you want to time track.  That way, you can see how much TOTAL WORK you're doing for that client each month, as well as how long it takes you to complete individual projects.

Automate the Habit

Your goal is simply to make better use of your time. When you start to really see how you are spending your writing hours, it begins to eliminate that paradoxical, stressful feeling that you have too much to do and that you never get anything finished.

Try to make it as easy as possible to keep up with this practice and it will become a habit.  Since I handle my time tracking online, all I have to do is click my browser window and a tab with Toggl automatically opens up.  And once you've made it a habit, you will see how quickly your writing career will accelerate!



I want to ask you, do you have any of your own productivity secrets that you can share or time tracking software that you might prefer? 

Please post in the comments below!