Get Paid to Write? Produce More and Earn More

Are you struggling to support your family on the money you get paid to write? Maybe you’re a work at home mom (WAHM) who needs to make the most of every writing hour available. Whatever your situation,  likely you have to earn more, or you have to write more, or both.

Working as a freelance blogger or writer has many benefits, including the freedom to work as much or as little as you like. That freedom can be a double-edged sword if you are not disciplined enough to keep on track and make your goals.

Many writing jobs (especially web content) are low-paying, and if you are a content mill writer, producing a large volume of articles or blog posts each day is critical to generating a lot of articles quickly. Whether you get paid to write 500 word blog posts at $200 or at $25, these five tips will  increase your writing productivity and your writing income.

5 Tips to Produce More When You Get Paid to Write

The Pomodoro Method

This intense time-chunking productivity method involves working without any distractions and focusing on the writing task at hand for 25 minutes, then resting for five minutes. (If you are a WAHM like me with an assortment of children running around, this may only work when they are napping or not in the house.)

After four “Pomodoros,” you have earned a longer break. The Pomodoro technique was developed by Francesco Cirillo over 25 years ago to increase productivity through time management. It is based on the idea that working in short bursts with small breaks keeps the brain and body fresh, and therefore improves productivity, important to those of us who get paid to write.

While it is used by people for all kinds of work, the Pomodoro technique is very effective for writing. I found that after a week of working with this method (during my daughter’s nap time), not only did my writing speed increase, but I began to think of different writing assignments in terms of the number of Pomodoros it took to complete them. This allowed me to better compare my hourly writing income on writing assignments, and adjust my rates and client base accordingly.

Use Negative Reinforcement Theory

I discovered another great free online writing tool to keep me on track  when I took part in Nanowrimo 2011, and it really worked for me.

Based on negative reinforcement theory, Write or Die encourages writers to write continuously, within a text box. Choose between writing for a set period of time, or achieving a word count. Before beginning a writing session it allows you to choose between the Gentle, Normal, or Kamikaze modes.

In the Gentle mode, you are reminded by a pop-up box to continue writing after a few seconds of keyboard inactivity. Normal mode exudes a harsh “unpleasant” sound while Kamikaze will start to delete the previously written words until you have completed your Write or Die Session!

While a $10.00 premium desktop downloadable version is available, the free online version worked just fine for me.

Use An Online Time Management Tool

Online time management tools are especially useful for writers who bill hourly. I use the free version of Toggl and recommend it for anyone who wants to work more efficiently. I’m actually using it right now as I create this post.

Track the time for each task you are working on, not just the pieces you get paid to write, but even the unpaid ones, and see how much time you really spend on Facebook or Pinterest, checking emails, surfing the Internet, etc.

The key to using Toggl effectively is to remember to hit “stop” when you leave your current task, and to be honest with yourself. A graph shows your total daily work production for the past week, and you can also access older reports. While the online version of Toggl is free, a paid version with a few more bells and whistles is also available.

More Articles for Work at Home Moms and Writers

• How to Be an Organized Mom: Single, Working, or Work at Home
• Work at Home Moms Business Ideas
• How Kicking Craigslist Jump-Started My Freelance Writing Career

Stick to a Daily and Weekly Writing Schedule

Experiment with writing at different times of the day. Some writers find they are most productive early in the morning, and can get more done before the sun rises than they can during the rest of the day. Others are slow to get started, and work well into the night. Use one of the methods above to identify when in the day you are most productive.

Try to schedule at least one day off a week to avoid burnout, and make sure you set aside time each week to send out applications for new writing gigs, marketing your web content writing, and taking part in an online writers community like the one at The Freelance Writers Den.

Limit Research Time

As a freelance online  writer you need to write efficiently, effectively, and consistently.  As you complete assignments for different clients you will get a feel for how long it should take you to research and write the piece. If you spend too much time researching or writing your freelance earnings will suffer.

When I used to get paid to write for the content mills, I allow myself fifteen minutes to find usable sources, and if the allotted time passed and I hadn’t found what I was looking for I released the title and moved on to something else. (Thankfully I replaced all my content mill work and low-paying Craigslist job board gigs with better paying clients over the past 18 months.)  If you still write for the mills, choose subjects that you know inside and out to minimize time spent on research.

The key to boosting your productivity and earnings when you get paid to write is to research and write efficiently, time yourself, for each subject matter and client, calculate your hourly earnings, then replace the lower paying writing gigs with better paying ones that you can write well and quickly.

Please note: This post contains my referral links which helps support the work of this site.