How to Write Faster :10 Tips to Get Over Writer’s Block – A lot of bloggers struggle with finding the time to write (and using that time effectively). If it’s ever taken you all day to write a blog post, or find it’s hard to keep going after an initial burst of motivation, writing can quickly get more than a little discouraging. You may even think that some bloggers are just naturally fast writers, but the truth is that anyone can increase their writing speed and get more writing done. Let’s dive in and explore 10 practical ways to boost your writing speed without sacrificing the quality.

How to Write Faster: 10 Tips to Get Over Writer’s Block

To be a successful blogger, you have to consistently create content.

There’s no way around it. You can’t just publish whenever you get a spark of inspiration or you carve out a couple of hours here or there. Rather, you need to get into a regular rhythm of publishing content, and that’s why it helps to write faster.

I’m Bunifas Dhanwar, and in this post, we’re gonna walk through how to publish content faster and get into a regular rhythm of writing that allows you to publish content that you are proud of.

First and foremost, it’s important to note that this isn’t about sacrificing quality for quantity. Some people think that you can’t write faster and also churn out content that you’re proud of, that’s going to help your readers, and that you feel like you can stand beside.

Now, done well, you can write faster and still put out quality content that impacts the readers who are coming to your site.

And in fact, when you do this properly, you’ll be able to actually create better content that flows more seamlessly from point to point and allows for a more standard narrative that you can churn out content regularly moving forward.

And trust me, in time, writing faster will also mean writing more easily. So if writing for your blog today feels like a slog, or sometimes it’s hit or miss, then trust me. The more you write, the more comfortable you’ll become with it as well.

So let’s get into today’s post.
We’re gonna talk about 10 tips to write faster.

Tip #1: write every day if possible.

Write every day if possible, so that you’re creating a regular habit around sitting down to flex your writing muscles. Now, obviously there will be some days in which you can’t write or you just simply won’t feel like writing. However, I really encourage you to create a regular practice around carving out time in your day to write.

Whether that’s just for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, whatever you feel like you can fit into your day reasonably and create and honor that time for writing, then that is going to be what’s going to help you become a much stronger and faster writer in time. And what’s more is the great thing about writing every day is that you don’t need to write a ton for it to begin adding up in major ways.

Once you get more comfortable with your writing, you should be able to write about 500 words in around 30 minutes. And I would encourage you to find the right times of day that work for you to write.

If you think more clearly in the morning, then go for that. If you’re more of a night owl, you prefer to work on your creative endeavors in the evenings, then go for that as well.

Wherever it fits into your schedule that works best for you, that’s gonna be the right answer. And it’s okay to experiment with this. If something’s not working, give it a try elsewhere in your day or in your week.

Writing just 500 words a day adds up to over 100,000 words a year, and that’s if you take off weekends and a few weeks here and there.

So clearly, there are compounding effects to just creating a regular habit around writing, and ideally every day if you can.

Tip #2: start with an outline to structure your blog posts.

Start with an outline to structure your blog post, so that you know exactly what you’ll be writing about next.

If you know what the bones are of your article before you begin writing, then you know what’s going to start it, what’s gonna be in the middle, and what’s gonna be at the end. I never write without an outline because I need to see where my logical flow of ideas will be going throughout the content.

And if you know where you would like your blog posts to go, then it’s that much quicker to write fast throughout the entire blog post itself. And yes, that means taking the detour at first to create your outline and think through how you want to structure your content and where you wanna include particular points.

You may find that during the writing process, you shift things around, but that’s okay. The purpose of an outline is to help guide you through your writing process, thus making it much faster.

Tip #3: write your first draft in bullet points.

Write your first draft in bullet points to get your most important thoughts, ideas and convictions down as quickly and clearly as possible.

You don’t need to write full, complete sentences or paragraphs or worry about formatting as you go. Oftentimes, I find that that’s restrictive and will slow down my own personal writing process.

So if you are particularly inspired, if you’re feeling like you want to create this content and you have to get it out your head and onto paper, then writing in bullet points for your first draft is one of the fastest ways to get all of your best ideas and thoughts and structures down onto paper immediately.

The headers, the quote tweets, the images, the structuring, the formatting, all of your research and data that you wanna cite and include, that can come during your editing process.
What’s important for your first draft is that you get down all of your most original, important, and core thoughts for this article.

Tip #4: write your article in whichever order you want.

Write your article in whichever order feels right, making it ok to jump around to any section that’s attracting your attention & energy.

Now, if you’re writing an article about the 10 steps to achieving XYZ, then you don’t have to write it from step 1 through 10 in a linear fashion. There are no rules with writing. And in fact, I would encourage you to focus on whichever sections of the article are drawing you in most.

Where is your energy feeling like it’s gonna be best utilized when you sit down to begin writing?

That’s gonna help you write so much faster if you begin writing on the section that pulls you in and compels you the most, so focus on what you feel most passionate about writing.

And again, having that outline already in place is the necessary structure that’ll allow you to safely jump around within your article and not get lost in your content creation process.

Tip #5: Write under pressure by setting a firm deadline for yourself on when you need to publish this article.

Write under pressure by setting a firm publishing deadline for yourself, so that you know exactly when your content has to go live. Now, I personally find that I am able to write much faster when I know I’m under the gun, when I have to publish an article on a specific date. And a beautiful side effect of that is that I often publish content before it feels ready, which is very important.

You can sit back as a writer and constantly work on editing your blog posts until it feels that magical ready, which, let me give you a clue, it rarely ever does.

There’s always gonna be more you can do to make a post perfect. Add more images, add more structure, add more content. There’s going to be more that you can always do, and I encourage you to set a really firm deadline with yourself that feels realistic.

Not something where you’re gonna have to churn out a half-assed blog post, but something that you feel like you can stand behind.

And often I find that some public accountability helps a lot with this firm deadline in that you can promise your readers a new post every Friday, or share on Twitter that you’re gonna be publishing an article on Tuesday.

Whatever that kind of publicly sort of accountability is, then that is what I encourage you to make your deadline that much more real.

Tip #6: Set a timer to stay focused during a writing sprint.

Set a timer to stay focused during a writing sprint (like using the Pomodoro technique) as a commitment to keep on track. Now, if setting a public deadline for yourself to publish something gives you the heebie-jeebies, then maybe something like setting a timer is a good way to stay focused and on track during your writing process. There are no hard-and-fast rules for timing a writing sprint.

However, one of the most popular ways to do it is called the Pomodoro Technique in which you would write for 25 minutes, you would take a five-minute break after that, and you would repeat this cycle three times before taking a longer 20 to 30 minute break to really clear your mind and allow yourself to rebuild your energy.

You can also break up your writing by taking 20 minutes to do emails or 30 minutes to work on designing images for your blogs or something else entirely.

But what’s important is that having a structure to how you’re writing and when you’re writing can help immensely during your process of creating content.

What’s important about this is the act of setting a timer, whether it’s on your phone, your computer, or otherwise, is a commitment to yourself. And you need to respect that, to honor it, to remain disciplined in your writing time being writing time.

Now, if you need a little external control, something to help you, there’s a tool called Strict Workflow that will be a plugin for your Chrome browser that helps you eliminate distractions and will keep you focused off of websites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and onto your writing during that time period which you’ve dedicated towards writing.

Tip #7: Set a word count goal to help you keep feeling productive.

Set a word count goal to aim for as a measure of success for each writing day in your week, and experiment with minimum vs stretch goals.

As someone who writes a lotta long-form content for my blog, often into the several thousand words in length, I find that setting a word count goal for myself for a particular session of writing helps me stay feeling like I’ve produced something valuable.

Even if I don’t finish the article in one sitting, it means I’m making meaningful progress towards it if I sit down and say I have a 500-word goal for the day or 1,000-word goal for the day. Whatever kind of time allocation I feel like I can put towards a piece of content for the day, I’ll set a goal that feels somewhat reasonable for it and will help me stay focused and feeling like I’m productive on my day.

But the reality is that some days I won’t be feeling as motivated or inspired to write, so I find that I’ll often set a minimum goal, say 500 words, and an ideal goal of, say, 1,500 words.
Kind of the stretch goal, what I would hope to get done. But I find that just having goals for my word count for the day often helps me stay productive.

Tip #8: Establish a writing ritual to get you started.

Establish a writing ritual or routine to get you started and into the right head space for producing high quality work. Many bloggers have a ritual or a routine they follow when they begin their writing process that helps them get primed and into the right space, the head space for creating content that’s going to be good for both you and your readers.

And this could be something as simple as journaling before you get started with your writing. It could be sitting down with a fresh cup of coffee, or just simply sitting down, reading through your goals, bullet-pointing out the thoughts that you think you wanna write about in this particular writing session.

Consider adding some sensory elements to your routine too like lighting a scented candle or playing your favorite songs, setting the right background music to begin your writing.
Now, you don’t wanna make your writing ritual something that’s rigid, that you have to do the exact same way every single time, because that’s not gonna be realistic over the span of time.

However, I find that if you can create a few simple little processes that help get you into the right mindset for writing, you’re going to often write much faster and it’ll feel that much more easy and energizing.

Tip #9:Do not edit while you’re writing.

Don’t edit while you’re writing your blog post, instead strive to draft a full post (with your most important ideas) rather than fussing around with fine-tuning and interrupting your writing flow
If you want a guaranteed way to write slower and feel like you’re making less progress, then editing your content as you’re writing it is going to slow you way down. You can’t do both at the same time.

Think about it. If you write a sentence, delete it, write half of another sentence, and then rewrite it again, fix some typos, go back and work on some formatting, you’re going to feel like you’re making slow forward progress. As much as possible, you should strive to draft a full blog post before you go back and edit it. Granted, there will be times when exceptions can be made.

However, you wanna create a practice around getting all of your best ideas and thoughts down onto paper before you go back and begin work on restructuring it. Along with not making edits while you’re writing, try and avoid pausing to look something up or to include a link.
Rather, highlight that section that you want to add a source for later, and make a note that you’ll come back and deal with it at a later time.

While it may only take 30 seconds to look something up and find that fact that you wanna back up, it’s going to interrupt your writing flow, and I find that this slows me down significantly when I lean into it.

Tip #10: Use a text expander for phrases and words that you often repeat usage of.

Use a text expander tool for words or phrases you regularly use, to help speed up your writing process. For instance, if you’re writing a product comparison article and you find that you’re often repeating a description of a particular product or the name of a long website or product out there, then using a text expander where you can type in an abbreviation that auto-populates that text field is a quick time-saver.

I use a product called Text Expander to do this, which has a 30-day free trial, or you can use a product called Beef text that works better on Windows. Whatever your current writing speed is today, you can see dramatic improvements over time if you focus on deliberate, regular practice in your writing.

Incorporate these tips, and you may find that your writing practice becomes that much faster right away immediately. Even if you’ve tried some of these tips before I would encourage you to give them another shot.

It might just click differently this time if you can shift your focus around how these tips can play into your personal writing process.

This week, pick just one or two of these tips to focus on, and see if they quickly make a difference in your process. Don’t be discouraged if your writing doesn’t seem to be picking up pace on a day-to-day basis, because over the grander scheme of things, just a 10% increase in your writing speed, week over week, will lead to writing twice as fast in just about nine weeks.

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