Ways to Be More Productive Online as a Freelance Writer

It’s no secret that as a freelance writer the more you write the more you earn when trying to make money online as a writer. The key to great earnings is indeed quality content. However, quality content for one article won’t pay the bills and make it as a freelance writer. Therefore, the key to success is getting as much quality content online as soon as possible. Combining productivity with quality articles is vital to making a living as a freelance writer. There are several ways to be more productive online as a freelance writer.

The web provides us with unprecedented power when it comes to producing material. Although it is full of millions of pieces of content there is still room for your talented articles and readers are searching for it. A great writer simply has to get that content to the web for readers to find and make more money writing online. Becoming more productive as a freelance writer means focusing on work and avoiding the distractions that the internet constantly bombards us with on a daily basis.

It’s easy to have a plan of action to take care of the business of writing and suddenly find yourself on YouTube for hours or cleaning out those hundreds of emails that need taken care of. Focus and discipline is how successful internet freelance writers make money writing online. The loss of one or both of these can create failure.

Writing with discipline and focus can not only get you more money online, but it can also free up more time to do the things that you desire. Imagine having more time to spend with your family, friends and other interests that you relish and enjoy. These are techniques and tips to making focus and discipline in your career writing online easier and more productive.

Review How You Spend Time Online

Browsing history can be retrieved with a click of a mouse or simply record it diary style. Amazingly the information exposed is a surprise to most writers. Find out where you are at what time during the day when online. Countless writers are surprised by what they see before them.

The evidence will reveal time spent online is dedicated to missed opportunities to push a writing career forward because time is wasted on websites or projects that are sidetracking making money with a writing career. Instead of reviewing, researching, producing or writing the time spent online is diverted to less productive activities that in most cases have nothing to do with writing.

All of our time online cannot be dedicated to writing. Of course, we need to review our email accounts, analytics or even Twitter. However, control how much time is spent on these activities each day. Don’t assume that you will only take a couple of minutes. This is how a little diversion can turn into a huge disruption and waste your precious time freelance writing online.  Set a timer to only spend 15 or twenty minutes doing a sidetrack project such as reviewing email and stick to it.

Reviewing the history of where you have spent most of your disruption time can certainly help you control these things and focus on the task of writing. Find the problem areas and take care of them before they take care of you. You can even remove shortcuts or other things that make it easy to log into the problem sites. Removing the easy way in can make you consider not taking a peek here and there and deviate from projects that need to be done for freelance writing income.

Reduce Obstacles to Production

There are several things that can be done to reduce the obstacles to writing to be more productive as an online freelance writer. Becoming more productive as an online freelance writer can be something as simple as finding more efficient ways to get around your computer.

Did you know that a wireless mouse instead of the navigation pad for laptops is more productive for writing? If you are currently using the navigation pad for your laptop consider trying a wireless mouse.

Shortcuts for the keyboard are another time saving measure that is overlooked. Learn the shortcuts for things such as copy and paste for moving work from Microsoft Word to where you are posting. This time saving move is amazing for those that are moving big Word docs for the posting process. there are also other ways to easily post to blogs that can save several big steps that can be in the way. Saving steps here and there may not seem like much. Though, when all of these are combined they free up more of a freelance writer’s valuable time.

There are a number of other obstacles that can be overcome that hinder production for freelance writers if you think about it. Every writer is different and there may be a variety of ways if you consider your own unique situation where obstacles are working against you to become more productive as an online freelance writer.

Avoid Procrastination

Procrastination is a fact of life for countless writers. This means that if you set up a deadline for yourself to complete a writing job by Tuesday that more times than not you finish it Wednesday. Become your own worst boss. Avoid procrastination and take care of it as soon as possible.

The more time you give yourself the more likely you are to procrastinate. Avoid procrastination by giving yourself less time to complete a project. Less times means you will focus and dedicate yourself to accomplishing the project or piece of content which is definitely moving to more production.

There will be endeavors that will take longer than expected or don’t work out quite as planned. This is a fact of freelance writing. In spite of this, for the most part avoid procrastination as much as possible by cracking the whip on yourself as a writer to become more productive.

Keep Busy

Believe it or not, if you want something done ask a busy person to do it and it will be done.  The more you have to do the more you will get done. This is Parkinson’s Law at work for a freelance writer. Idle hands and all will definitely find the time to surf the web and waste precious freelance writing time. If you don’t keep busy you can find yourself losing out on money and less productive than the writer that does.

Surprising having less time to complete freelance writing projects will actually improve completing more with focus and discipline.

Too Much Multi-Tasking Is Not Always a Good Thing

Multi-tasking is something that most of us cannot live without. Yet, there are times when multi-tasking leaves freelance writers producing less quality as well as quantity. Too much going on at the same time can actually hurt our writing production. This is not to be confused with keeping busy.

If we have too much going on at the same time we can make more mistakes, complete less projects as well as take longer to finish what we start. This doesn’t mean that we absolutely shouldn’t multi task. Know what our personal limits are when it comes to doing more than one thing at a time.

We can actually do two or three things at once. However, evaluate the situation and determine if we need to eliminate something in order to accomplish a goal. Remember, focus and discipline include producing great work in the end. If multi-tasking is moving a writer away from this then eliminate the problem as soon as possible to become more productive when more than one task is at hand.

In Conclusion

Take this information and get going at being more productive as an online freelance writer. Take care to make certain that these are tips and techniques that will benefit you personally as a writer to make more money online.

Quite possibly only one out of these is something useful for your particular writing career. If so, I am pleased. If all are something you can use then I am ecstatic. Take care to remember focus and discipline for writing huge amounts of quality content is what makes the great ones successful with freelance writing careers online.

pic is courtesy of Great Writing Tips