My penultimate tips for productive writing during NaNoWriMo

Wow! This month has been crazy as I attempt to squeeze writing around a busy Christmas build up. Why when you have something important planned does every weekend seem to get filled up with social engagements?

Anyway, I’ve got a ton of Productivity Tips to get through today so let’s crack on…

Disclaimer - These are just tips. If you follow every single one of them but don't actually sit down to write then none of them will work! Obviously!

Productivity Tip #18 – SMART Targets

This actually comes from my PE teaching days. A SMART target is:

SPECIFIC – You can say precisely what it is.
MEASURABLE – You can tell me when you’ve reached your target.
ACHIEVABLE – It’s not so astronomically difficult that you can’t achieve it.
REALISTIC – Taking into account everything that is going on in the real world, you could achieve your target.
TIME-BOUND – You’ve got a deadline.

Put simply this is NOT a SMART target:

‘I will finish my first draft.’

However, this IS a SMART target:

‘I will write 1,667 words by 9pm this evening.’

If you set yourself SMART targets you are proven to be more successful in achieving your goals. Fact!

Productivity Tip #19 – Multi-tasking is a Myth

Despite women the world over being renown for being able to achieve this feat, multitasking does not actually exist.

Ok, rephrase that, multitasking two activities that involve your brain is impossible. Like anyone I can sit on the toilet and read a book at the same time. However, I’m not usually using my brain power to defecate!

So trying to focus on writing and your phone won’t work. Trying to watch a movie and type won’t work. Just try and have a conversation with any Arsenal fan while the Gunners are playing on TV. Actually, scrap that. You don’t need your brain to watch Arsenal play.

It’s been proven that if you attempt to complete two mental tasks at once then you complete both more slowly and with less precision than if you complete one task and then the other.

Productivity Tip #20 – Write Every Day

Even if it is just a sentence. Even if you only put down 14 words in a whole day (which is what I managed on day 19). If you write very single day then you will gradually, slowly, build up your manuscript. You will have the positive feeling of having never had a ‘0’ day and know that you are still working towards your goal.

If you do have a ‘0’ day, then the next day might be a ‘0’. And the next. And the next. Before you know it, it’s been a week and you’ve got out of the habit of writing your story.

Don’t get off the treadmill, because once you do, it is so much harder to motivate yourself to get back on.

So even if you write a few notes on your phone, on the back of a napkin, or on the forehead of a small child (don’t do that!) then get something written every day towards your end goal.

Productivity Tip #21 – Mix It Up

If you feel like you’re stuck in a bit of a rut then change it up. Write in a different location. Ditch the laptop for an old-school pen and paper. Write in the evening if you normally write in the morning. Change up the situation and kick your brain into a new gear.

Changing up the routine apparently stimulates the hippocampus. No, it’s not the university halls for African wildlife. It’s the part of your brain responsible for memory. So if you want to have a chance to remember how the smells of the Outback or the feel of a saddle beneath your coccyx then I recommend mixing up your routine just a smidge.

Productivity Tip #22 – The To Do List

Now I wouldn’t recommend that you do this at the start of the 30 day challenge. And I wouldn’t recommend you do this if you haven’t planned out your chapters (You didn’t plan out your chapters?! Are you insane?!).

But, if you feel like you are on the final straight and you’ve only got those boring in-between chapters left to do then this is a Tip for you. You know the ones that don’t inspire you as much. There’s no fighting, love-making, chasing or murdering happening. It’s just 2 people sat on a bench talking about feelings or something even more bleugh!

If you’ve only got those scenes left, then my friend, it’s time to return to the post its.

Write the title of each of the post its that you have left and stick them somewhere obvious. Then each time you complete one of those chapters, like an angry toddler you can screw them up and chuck them in the waste paper basket. The psychological boost from your mini childish tantrums is incredible. And there’s the added benefit of actually feeling like a struggling writer of old discarding reams of paper into the bin.

Don’t forget to recycle!

Productivity Tip #23 – Change your location

Speaking of recycling, I may have started to reuse some tips from before but that's all good.

Along the same lines as the ‘Mix It Up’ Tip above, this is a chance to change your routine but there are also added benefits.

Stuck for a description for an insignificant character? Go to the local coffee shop and put one of the patrons into your novel. Shhhh! They’ll never know.

Need a description for somewhere outside, take your notebook (or laptop if it’s got enough charge) and sit under a tree / go for a walk / camp on a beach / climb a mountain. Whatever it takes to jolt your mind into the feelings of being in a location similar to the one in your scene.

I wouldn’t recommend taking your laptop into a sauna if your book is desert. I’m pretty sure that that’d be a really dumb move.

Productivity Tip #24 – Write for Tomorrow

Before you go to bed to night write the first line of the next day’s writing. So, if you are starting a new chapter, write the first line of that chapter.

Guess what? It’ll get your mind thinking while your dreaming. And when you wake up in the morning, you’ll be raring to go to write the next line. And the next. And before you know it, the next chapter is written.

Sometimes I do this and then the next morning I realise that the sentence I wrote the night before is completely wrong and I want to take the story in a brand new and exciting direction. I just delete the sentence and start the chapter fresh. But at least my mind is already bounding ahead like a Labrador puppy eager to get on with the rest of the story.

That’s your lot for today. The last post will be all the last 7 Tips as we race into the final furlong of this mental writing challenge. The focus will move from Writing Productivity to Next Steps. So watch this space.

(Don't literally watch this space. The next post won't be up here for at least a week. If you sat here literally watching this space it'd be dead boring. Go on! Get out there and do something productive, like, I don't know, writing a book!!)