Are You A Productive Writer?
How much time do you spend on writing each week? When you sit at your desk to write, is that all you do, or do you get distracted by other things. I’ll come clean and say that I am prone to distraction. In addition to writing/blogging, I also spend my time reading blogs, maintaining my sites, checking out new advertisers, researching and promoting my sites or blog posts. All of these are essential tasks for a writing business. But …
Rescuing My Writing Time
If you’d asked me a couple of weeks ago – or if you’d asked anyone in my family – you’d hear that I spend all day at my computer. I start at 8am, work till 2pm or 3pm depending on school pickup, and do some more in the evening. But I decided to find out for sure, with the aid of an application called RescueTime.
RescueTime is a time tracker. There’s a lightweight desktop application which sends info to a website to produce charts about how you spend your time. Of course, you have to do some work too.
Tagging And Tracking
The desktop app tracks the applications that you open and how long you spend using them (measuring the application that’s in focus at the time). It also tracks which sites you visit. Your job is to tag those sites with handy labels. If you are a serial surfer, then this might prove too much for you. I discovered that I visit a lot more sites than I thought.
I’ve been using it for the last week and I’ve made a few more discoveries. This was an unusual week for me. I was off site for a couple of days, and busy in the evenings, so I did much less writing than usual – just 11 hours. That included both writing articles and writing blogs. I spent 4 hours on email, 2 hours on site maintenance, and nearly an hour each on advertising and promotion.
What I Learned About Writing Time
Clicking on my most productive day revealed that I spent almost 45% of my time writing, with the rest spent on other tasks, including looking at other blogs. That means that 55% of my time was spent doing other stuff. A lot of this was research for my writing, searching for new gigs, and emailing writers and clients, so this was all related stuff.
And I learned something else. Although I did less writing than I thought, my writing time was extremely productive. In the hours that I worked, I wrote quickly and maintained a high hourly rate. The lesson is that I don’t have to be glued to my computer all day to make writing pay. I just have to use my writing time effectively.
Have you ever tried tracking how you spend your time? What tools did you use and what did you find out?
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Get Paid To Write Online by Sharon Hurley Hall is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Copyright for posts written by guest authors remains with them.Useful info
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Hi Sharon,
This post has come at just the right time for me as it is something I have been working on lately. Using the notebook and pen method I have been writing down how I actually spend my time – generally it is about half writing and half doing other things connected with the business of writing and surfing etc.
There have been a couple days when I have spent too much time surfing and reading other blogs but at least I know that now – will click for the software though.
I’ve found the same thing about being productive when it comes to write. I don’t have a lot of time, but I’ve set aside an hour in the early morning for writing, and that is all I do during that time. I make sure that the day before I’ve written down notes about what I want to write about the next day, so when morning comes, I just write. I’ve found I can write a lot more if I take this approach. I also have to eliminate distractions, like noise, the internet, etc.
About a year ago, I used a tool like that as well. Unfortunately I cannot remember what it was called.
After about a month, I had lots of data as to what programs I had been using, but I had not tagged the individual items to really get a good picture as to where my time went. (That seemed like too much of a waste of time – at the time).
But I do keep track of my productive time in an Excel sheet, just noting how many hours I work on which project. That helps me see whether they are worthwhile.
Alexander
@ Sue: the software works pretty well, though I have to resist the temptation to let it become another distraction. I am a statsaholic, so it’s hard to stay away.
@ Ryan: that sounds like an excellent way to make sure your time is truly productive.
@ Alexander: project tracking is a great idea. I am using this software for that as well, since I usually work on one project at a time.
My productivity varies from day to day.Although I write everyday, I find that I don’t have high productivity everyday.The Internet is a huge distraction but it’s also a source of inspiration so I’m unwilling to give it up. I have found that setting a timer for tasks helps as well as allowing myself time to do nothing.
Wow. This information was useful to me. Thanks for sharing.
I do other stuff for a living. However I would love to write for money or even blog for money. Not proving very successful in that area.
I will put this on my laptop and use it.
Good suggestion, Writing Nag. Writing and productivity are completely different things, aren’t they?
Thanks for reading, Keala.
Going to test this out today. Or tomorrow, time willing
Great, let me know what you find out, James.
First impression – COOLNESS! Download, install, and forget about it. Nothing to enter; it does all the work for you. Go through your day, one click updates the info at the end of the day, and then you take a look at your graph.
…and fall off your chair. God, I read a lot of email.
lol, apparently I have spent 18 hours on email so far this month. I don’t quite believe it, but the evidence is there. I guess that’s less than one hour a day, but still ….
Hi – We’ve recently introduced a new version of our time and activity analytics solution, Slife v2.0. It’s now available for Mac/Windows and you can extend it to multiple users with Slife Teams.
http://www.slifelabs.com
http://www.slifeteams.com
It’s similar to RescueTime in some ways. Give it a try – the Slife client is free. We would love to know what you think.
Edison, I’m reviewing this on TechGerm.com tomorrow.