Missed the first posts in this series? Check them out here.
#3 Write Daily
With the exception of Sundays and the very occasional day off, I blog every single day. This might seem exhausting to some people, but honestly, I’ve found that I’m much more inspired and creative when I’m regularly exercising my writing muscles.
In fact, it seems the more I write, the more inspiration I have to write. When I was in the middle of writing my book, I felt like my brain was going to explode with all the post ideas coming to me everywhere I turned.. There wasn’t time enough to write half of them, so I just had to tuck them away for later.
Truly, creativity breeds creativity. If you want to blog regularly, don’t wait until you’re feeling inspired to write… just write!
Schedule a Daily Writing Time
Set a daily scheduled writing time, put it on your calendar, and train yourself to keep that commitment like your life depends upon it. Soon, it may become such a habit that you would be able to imagine going through your day!
Eliminate Distractions
When you sit down to write, you’ve got to focus on the task at hand. This is not the time to be checking social media, answering emails, or surfing the internet.
I’ve found that I work best when I shut down email and all other online distractions, set the timer for 15 or 20 minutes, and just dive in and write until it goes off. I’m amazed at how much I can get done when I just shut everything down and work in concentrated chunks. {Since I usually write in the early mornings, I can usually accomplish this without worrying little people walking in and needing their mama right then. :)}
Create Conducive Conditions
What are your ideal writing conditions? If you don’t know, now’s the best time to find out — especially because you’ll want to schedule your writing time when you’re going to be at peak performance.
Some questions to ask yourself/things to experiment with:
- Where do you do your best writing? Try writing in different rooms in your home and in different work spaces. I don’t write well sitting at a desk, so I have a big comfy writing chair in my office that most all of my posts are composed from.
- When do you do your best writing? I am usually freshest first thing in the morning,
- Do you write best with a pen and paper or do your ideas flow best when you’re typing on your computer? I do some of both — I usually outline my posts with pen & paper (more on that in a later post) and then type up the complete post on my laptop.
- Does music enhance or detract from your creativity? For me, most of the time it detracts. But I know that certain kinds of music really gets some people’s creative juices flowing.
- Do certain actions fuel your inspiration? I find that washing dishes, showering, and exercising are often times when I get great writing inspiration and ideas. I often exercise right before my writing time — it seems that getting my heart rate up really gets my brain cells firing, too!
You can’t always hit our ideal conditions every day, but put forth effort to do everything you can to make your environment as conducive for great writing can go a long way in making your writing time more productive.
Do you have a fun and frugal DIY idea to share? I’d love to hear about it! Read the submission guidelines and submit it 
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