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5 tactics to build your daily writing habit
These will make you a prolific writer
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There are many ways to become a better writer.
You can read a lot.
You can study great writers.
You can practice techniques.
But, ultimately, there’s only one way to get better:
Write every day.
There’s no substitute for the reps.
Writing every day requires building a consistent writing habit.
How do you do that if you’re early on in your writing journey?
Here are 5 tactics that will help:
1. Prioritize consistency > intensity
Starting out, it doesn’t matter how much you write.
The ONLY thing that matters is you write every day.
This is about mindset.
Most people — especially early in the New Year, when they’re motivated — embrace an “intensity” mindset.
Workout 5 times a week
Write for one hour per day
Read 2 books per month
Never eat candy again
Etc. It’s almost never sustainable.
Instead, adopt a “consistency” mindset.
This means you prioritize consistency above all else.
And consistency means doing the thing every day.
2. Schedule time to write
One of the best tools for building consistency is your calendar.
What gets scheduled gets done.
So schedule time to write on your calendar every day.
It doesn’t matter how short.
Schedule it at a point in the day where you’re unlikely to be interrupted.
Most of my focused writing is done between 8-11am in my office, as an example.
3. Plan what you’ll write
Spend a couple minutes the day before planning what you’ll write the next day.
This could be as a simple as writing a working headline and a couple bullet points on the page for you to start with.
The main thing is not starting with a blank page.
That makes it much harder to get going when you sit down during your scheduled writing time.
One tactic I use (that takes 60 seconds or less) is writing a “reminder” to myself, like this:
“This is a reminder that tomorrow I will write a post for The Daily Creator on how to build a consistent writing habit. I want to include these 5 ideas.”
Then tomorrow, I sit down and dive right in.
4. Write regardless if you publish or not
Publishing every day is not the goal right now.
Writing every day is the goal.
So do it on days you don’t intend to publish.
Write things even if you never intend to publish them.
Now, ideally, you DO publish every day.
Building the muscle of publishing is important, and there’s nothing more valuable than audience feedback.
But if you’re not publishing every day, don’t use that as an excuse to not write every day.
5. Write in different environments
So many writers need the perfect environment for them to write.
Quiet space. Good ambiance. Nice keyboard. Fresh latte.
Whatever.
The most prolific writers I know have trained themselves to write in ANY environment (seriously, I’ve seen some great content produced in 20 minutes in the back of taxi).
Life is not always going to give your latte and a quiet library.
Things happen.
So if you want to build an indestructible daily writing habit, practice writing anywhere and on different tools.
On your computer in your office.
On a notepad at a restaurant.
On your iPad at the car wash.
On your phone on a walk.
Etc.
Action Item
Schedule 15 minutes into your calendar every day for the next 30 days to write.
Write about anything you want in those 15 minutes.
Bonus points if you publish it somewhere (ideally a social platform where you get feedback), but it’s okay if you don’t.
For the next 30 days, the most important thing is you build the muscle of articulating your thoughts in writing every single day.
Do this without missing a day, and you’ll never look back.
Previous Issues
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