Productivity – Clear some time to get writing

For over a year now, Sunday has been my day to work. On Sundays, I’ve blocked out a few hours for the productive writing process. I’ve been a trained technical writer for more than 10 years now. I know I can write beautiful prose, except it’s the kind of prose worthy of legal contracts and business processes. Nowadays I’m trying to be more faithful to this skill and be creative in my writing. So Sunday is my day to write more freely and to enjoy the writing process.

Productivity Tip - A few hours doesn’t generate a lot of writing

The process of writing takes longer than you think. I can’t just sit down and write immediately. Over the week I try to create a list of topics which are worthwhile to write about. Generally I have forgotten the list as soon as I add something to it. So I work with notes and scratches of ideas scribbled down on paper. It helps to provide a starting point.

Have a goal with your writing

The reason I started this writing process was to save myself a daily chore of writing for my website. Spend a few hours writing on Sunday and save myself an hour a day. The struggle to write daily is ultimately being defeated by time. Time to go to Work. Time to go to gym, to eat, to sleep. Time to have Fun. It’s always time to do something else.

Distraction free writing

I can’t write at home, I can’t work at home at all. At home where there are domestic chores that I ‘like’ to do – a mini freezer to clean, an espresso to be made and to drink, surfing the net to catch up on the latest news - all these little distractions add up to hours of work not done.

I can work in some of the noisiest cafes and meeting places in London. You see I need the ambient noise to distract my ears. This allows my other senses to come to life – to think, to write, to create. I can block out noise. It’s one of those attention deficit habits I’ve turned to my own benefit. But at home or at work, the smallest noise – the hum of the computer fan, can make me distracted.

Productivity Tip - Clear Some Time and Find Your Space

Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t get your writing started - get up, go out, take a pen and paper, and go - just be sure that you know to keep that time to writing. Don’t be distracted.

Meet the author

Damien Saunders
An experienced management consultant and business leader interested in digital transformation, product centred design and scaled agile. If I'm not writing about living with UCTD (an autoimmune disease), I'm probably listening to music, reading a book or learning more about wine.