How to Speed Up Your Writing Progress and Productivity

Do you think learning how to become more productive is the primary factor that will make you successful as a nonfiction writer? Or do you think success comes solely from your writing skill and marketable ideas? In fact, while productivity, craft, and ideas that sell, indeed, can make you successful as a nonfiction writer, you need more… Your writing progress and productivity depend on your ability to master your life…which means yourself.

Successful writers master the elements of their lives as well as the elements of their careers.

Personal and professional activities fall under the heading of “life.” Therefore, you need life balance. More specifically, you need your life to work on all levels if you want your writing career work, too.

Everything Affects Your Writing

If you can’t get a handle on your relationships, children, work, health and fitness, or any other aspect of your life, you’ll have a hard time getting a handle on writing. Why? Because it’s all related…it’s all part of your life.

Writing vs. Riding

I recently had a client in my High-Performance Writer Group Coaching Program. She had horses in the back yard. When she’d see the horses out the window, she felt guilty for not riding them or even grooming them. When she did ride, she felt guilty about not writing. In fact, she once got so focused on her writing project—and stressed about it—that she fell off her horse while riding.

No matter what she was doing, this woman felt distracted, and that affected her productivity. Plus, the fall left her wary of riding.

Through High-Performance Writer coaching sessions, she realized she could—and needed to—ride as well as write. And she did just that. Afterward, she was happier and more productive with both activities. Plus, when she began to ride again, her courage in other ares of her life increased, too.

Energy to Write

Another one of my High-Performance Writer Group Coaching Program clients had been so busy taking care of her elderly parents and trying to earn a living that she felt too tired and discouraged to write. All her life she’d been active—teaching yoga and exercise classes or attending them. Now, she was exercised sporadically, and was overweight, unmotivated, passionless, and unenergetic. During a session about energy, she committed to exercising regularly once again.

Within a few weeks, she had the energy to start exploring a book project she had started years before. Not only that, she began to feel more positive and enthusiastic about following her dream of becoming a published author. She even took a little booklet she had produced to a local bookstore, and the owner agreed to sell it in the store—and give her a spot on the calendar to hold a workshop.

Unclutter for Increased Productivity

Two of my High-Performance Writer Group Coaching Program clients got motivated to do some decluttering after we discussed productivity in a session. After taking five to ten bags of old stuff to Goodwill and even more to the trash can, they found themselves feeling clearer and more able to focus. That meant their writing productivity improved.

What Stops You From Writing?

Think about it… What stops you from writing?

I can have trouble writing when I’m worried about one of my kids or I’ve had a fight with my husband. I can struggle to write if I’m concerned about my income for the month or enrolling a new client or one of my programs. I can find myself procrastinating when I’m afraid to start on a project for some reason. And I can be totally unmotivated if I have not taken time to move my body, eat, drink, sleep enough, or breath fresh air. Plus, I do everything possible not to write when I have a problem to solve; instead I focus on finding a solution.

As a Certified High Performance Coach, I have learned to tackle many of these issues when they arise. But I know how they will affect my ability to write productively. So I’m sure to avoid the things that make my writing slow and laborious and me unproductive.

Everything affects your writing. Period. Every aspect of your life.

That’s why you have to manage your life, not just your writing. But to do that, you have to manage yourself.

That means you need to focus on personal development as much, if not more, than your writing. When you learn to handle all that life throws you, you’ll find that writing happens no matter what. As you master yourself, you’ll speed up your writing progress and productivity.

What stops you from writing, and how do you get past that challenge?

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