I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
It may not surprise you that the author of this comment – the late Douglas Adams, to be precise – suffered severe bouts of writer’s block. In fact, so bad was Adams at meeting (or missing) deadlines that on occasions his former publisher moved into his house to bully him into writing.
If you have ever suffered writer’s block then you know how frustrating it can be to both start writing and to find the will power to keep distractions at bay. Luckily, you don’t need a zealous literary agent to keep you at the keyboard. Try these four tips instead:
1. Balance your research
The balance between research and write-up time is delicate: too much of the former, and you risk creating copy that is over-burdoned by facts; too little research, and your readers will think you are simply shooting from the hip. Although the right balance will depend on your own preferences as much as the subject you have to tackle, a good rule of thumb is to absorb enough information so that you can easily write an article without having to go back over your notes.
2. Carry on regardless
When you’re trying to write an article, it’s easy to get tempted by finding the exact quote or statistic that you need to back up an argument. Don’t bother, as the act of searching may well disrupt your writing mojo. Instead, simply place a note in the text explaining what you need and carry on. But don’t forget to edit and tidy up your text at a later date.
3. Can the internet
If you’re not going to let the search for the perfect quote get in your way, repeat the trick with email, chat messages and general internet-reliant distractions. The point is to remove those temptations that can easily lead you tempt you away from productivity.
4. Nice tomatoes
If you have a lot to write about then maintain your concentration (and boost your chances of even starting) by working in small bursts. Adherents to the Pomodoro Technique, for instance, slice up their work time into 25-minute intervals, with breaks lasting three to five minutes. Others recommend 52 minutes work followed by a 17-minute break, but the underlying principle remains: over the course of a day, you’ll get much more done by taking regular breaks.
