I’ve heard bloggers writing a single blog post for two to four hours. Boasting aside, I only write mine an hour or two each.
No, I’m not a natural writer. In fact, I’m still having those “Dramatic pause” every minute or so looking for the right word to express my point (That’s because English is not my first language.)
What’s my secret?
Focus.
Do nothing but write the article.
But how do you grab hold of that focus till you finish the article?
Here are my five tips:
1. Turn Off That Music
Do not lower the volume, turn it off!
I’ve had bad experiences with music when writing. In my own experience this is the number one thing that always keeps me out of focus when writing.
The last minute you were writing, the next minute you find yourself singing and swaying with the music.
Now who’s with me?
2. Close Your Email
This one is a killer. Tons of people are in to this. Tons of people write with their email accounts open. And yes, tons of people are distracted with their email accounts open.
It just snowballs you when an email arrive in the middle of you working on an article. After you’ve replied to it, you see another one waiting, you reply to it again, and so on and so on.
Email is the one of the internet’s biggest time whore, try to schedule things up and make a habit of checking your email.
3. MSN, YM, Skype and AIM Is A No No!
If your IM client has over 100 contacts piled up, you can imagine how hard it is to focus on writing with your IM client open. Heck, you can’t even do any simple work.
It’s just too irritating. Especially when someone adds you and asks personal stuff and that. Well, you can’t just close the client or block the guy because he might classify you as “Rude” and tell the world about it. Argh.
4. Close The Windows, Lock The Door
If you have kids mingling around your house, I might have hit the bulls eye on this one.
As for me, I have a brother and a sister – and they won’t stop bugging me everytime. I can’t blame them about that though, I’m sure I did that to my dad before too.
5. Cut Your Internet Connection
With just one click, you could easily get lost on what you’re doing. Especially when you have the StumbleUpon toolbar installed or any other toolbar that with one single click, it will take you to another website.
The solution, cut the connection.
There are days were our connection is a bit laggy, we can’t browse or do virtually anything online. I’ve observed that I write faster on these days, because often times in the middle of writing an article, I recall a website I haven’t read in months.
What’s Loosing Your Focus?
Like in any other article, I want you to get involved.
How about you? What’s the single biggest thing that keeps loosing your focus when writing? Or any work you always do.
