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Productivity Tools for Writers 2022
Whether it’s about writing a book of several pages or eight hundred words blog posts, or just an article on a random topic, they are always a result of your diligent research work for several nights, and mugs of coffee. Writers get the work done no matter how tedious the job is.
It’s because, no matter what you’re writing about, you’re writing something important, at least important to you. But had you been given the chance to increase your productivity and to save some more time, would you not grab the opportunity?
Let’s find out what tools you can use to increase your productivity
Google docs
It’s difficult to stay productive when you have so many other demands on your time. Google Docs is useful for a variety of reasons. It is not only a free in-browser word processor. You can also access your scene or chapter draughts while on the go by downloading the app for your phone. Are you stuck in line? While you wait, pull out your phone and resume drafting in Docs.
Google Docs documents can be organized in folders in Google Drive. This can be accessed through your Gmail account or by going directly to Google Drive and signing in. Make a folder for each chapter, and keep the outline and draught for each in its own, named folder. This makes it simple to maintain a global view of your work in progress.
Evernote
“Evernote is a powerful tool that can help executives, entrepreneurs, and creative people capture and arrange their ideas. All you have to do is use it.” ______ Forbes
It reduces productivity if you have to take a break to look for an article you read once that was relevant to your story. Once you start exploring Evernote, this useful app allows you to save entire articles or quotes for later viewing. Because Evernote allows you to write and organize notes, you can use it to form your draft and give it the perfect structure and at the same time stay focused.
Evernote’s basic version is free, but the premium version includes a slew of extra features. Evernote has a plan for you whether you want to get organized, keep your personal life on track, or increase workplace productivity.
Scrivener
Scrivener by Literature and Latte is a useful writing app for Windows, macOS, and iOS that also helps you structure your writing and plan your research. The virtual corkboard for storyboarding is one of Scrivener’s best features. You can arrange virtual index cards here, rearranging and shuffling text snippets visually.
In fact, this is how the famous writer Vladimir Nabokov wrote his novels. Nabokov wrote his most famous novels (including Lolita) entirely on index cards.
Scrivener is the go-to app for writers of all genres, with best-selling novelists, screenwriters, nonfiction writers, students, academics, lawyers, journalists, translators, and others using it on a daily basis. Scrivener will not teach you how to write; instead, it will provide you with everything you need to get started and keep writing.
Scrivener is basically designed for long writing projects. It eliminates page fright by allowing you to compose your text in any order, in sections as large or small as you like. Have a great idea but don’t know where to put it? When inspiration strikes, write it down and find a home for it later. Grow your manuscript organically, one idea at a time.
Scrivener works the way you want it to, it enables you to hammer out every last detail before typing a word, or carve out a draught and restructure later. Or combine your methods and do a little bit of both. Everything you write in Scrivener is integrated into an easy-to-use project outline. Working with an overview of your manuscript is thus always just a click away.
Now Novel
Well, it is not a bad idea to include Now Novel in this article about tools that are productive and useful for writers because it has been founded with the express purpose of helping budding writers get and stay productive.
It is difficult to work out the individual elements of your novel such as its cast of characters, themes, and major plot points. This is why this app has been created, it is a structured series of prompts organized by theme, to assist you in developing the blueprint for your story. You can use it to keep fleshing out your story premise until it can support a full-fledged story.
It is a good idea to scribble out at least one section of your draught per week to stay productive all the time, be it in the present or future. You can save sections of your draught to your private member profile in Now Novel’s ‘Scribble Pad’ and share any you choose with the rest of the community in order to garner supportive feedbacks.
Trello
Trello is a simple, free, flexible, and visual project management and organization tool used by millions of people worldwide, as it claims itself. Trello is a useful free productivity app if your writing productivity suffers due to a lack of structure.
Although it is not specifically designed for writing a novel, its corkboard-like structure makes it ideal for this purpose.
You can create a board in Trello and name it with the working title of your novel. From here, you can make titled lists and add or “pin” movable cards (similar to index cards) to each one. For example, you could make a list for each chapter and a card summarising each scene.
Another way to use Trello’s lists and cards are to organize research so that you can quickly find information relevant to your story. For instance, you could make a list for each setting, fleshing it out with place names or descriptive details. Staying organized will allow you to move from scene to scene more smoothly as you draught.
A distraction-free writing environment
Most overflowing word processors, including Microsoft Word, now have sleek full-screen modes that allow you to write without distractions. There are also numerous excellent browser-based options. A low-distraction writing environment can help you stay productive for longer periods of time.
A single app can’t be mentioned over here as there are many good ones and you have to select them so that it can meet your own customized preferences. Such as ZenPen, a simple browser-based writing app with a white background, a bold heading that you can edit, and minimal text markup features.
Drafts can be copied and pasted from ZenPen into your preferred word processor for revision and storage. ZenPen also allows you to save your writing in HTML or plain text formats, which is useful if you intend to create an eBook. Calmly Writer is another example of a minimalist distraction-free online writing app.
If you have a habit of going back and editing what you’ve written while drafting before finishing a section, change the text color in your regular word processor to white. That way, you won’t be able to see what you’ve just written until you highlight it and return it to its original color.
Distraction-free writing tools available in the market
Calmly Writer
Calmly Writer is a distraction-free writing tool that disappears once you begin writing. When you’re not typing, you have access to all of the features you’d expect from a writing app. But once you start writing, everything else fades away, allowing you to concentrate solely on writing.
750words
750words.com is a fantastic website for increasing your writing productivity. The distraction-free writing area (which will not help you if you are a Facebook addict) can help you become a better writer. The main objective of using this site is to write at least 750 words per day.
If you want to improve your writing skills, it is obvious that you should write something every day. This simple tool keeps track of what you write each day. You are shown a horizontal calendar with a checkmark on each date if you have completed writing 750 words on that day. If you don’t write anything, you’ll get an empty box.
ZenPen
ZenPen is a minimalist writing app for the web. It is a distraction-free writing platform that focuses on assisting you in getting back on track and writing what is important. It is a free web app that can be accessed directly through your web browser.
Once fully loaded, you can begin writing right away. There is no need to log in or register. This web-based application also has a simple and straightforward writing interface that supports basic text editing such as bold, italics, quotes, and URLs.
TimeDoctor
Regardless of how much you write, you must keep track of the time you set aside for writing and the actual amount of time you spent writing. This happens to most writers all the time. On average, you can set aside an hour to complete your writing tasks and then do whatever you want with the rest of your time.
However, it eventually takes more than two hours due to pointless conversations on Facebook, Youtubing, and numerous other distractions. After you will start using TimeDoctor, you can actually see how much time you have used to write. So this is an effective writing tool indeed.
Wunderlist
It is critical to keep a list of to-dos and reminders. Wunderlist is a free piece of software that can assist you in this situation.
There’s a possibility that one might lose some of his writing projects due to a weak brain or maybe carelessness, but with this app by your side, you can form a to-do list for each project and set a deadline to complete it.
In this way, you will find that your work will become much more organized because you will grow organized with Wunderlist. Wunderlist is mainly used to create such lists.
A web-based timer
A timer is a must-have tool for increasing your writing productivity. When you keep track of how you spend your writing sessions, you become aware of which sessions are productive and which are not. You can also better divide your writing time and breaks to avoid burnout. Working for 20 minutes at a time with 10-minute breaks between stretches is one method.
You can leave several web-based timers running in the background. You can use Google’s no-frills timer and stopwatch by simply searching for “Timer.” If you enable audio notifications, your timer will beep when it’s time to take a break.
Pomodoro
The Pomodoro technique proved to be extremely helpful in producing more content in less time. Pomodoro is a technique in which you are given 25 minutes to complete a task. Once you start the timer, you can only leave when you finish the task.
If you really want to, you can take short and long breaks in between. The screen displays a countdown clock, which serves as a constant reminder that you are at work and should not be distracted by anything else. Isn’t it a great way to stay focused and devoted to what you are writing!
Story Starters
If you want to improve your productivity and writing skills, you must write every day. But what exactly should you write? It can be difficult to come up with a topic at times. Story Starters will assist you in generating a random starting line for a story, from which you can begin and finish your story. This is a tool you should bookmark if you write stories. It will never fail to assist you in coming up with more creative ideas!
Grammarly
The majority of writers, unknowingly, make silly grammar errors. After they finish writing, they sit for proofreading, which is where the majority of their time is wasted. You can use Grammarly to correct your grammar errors in the article and assist you in forming better sentences. You can use this tool for proofreading as usual, and you’ll find that your edits take much less time than you expected.
Aside from productivity apps, there are numerous other online tools for authors. Canva makes it simple to create professional designs for your social media accounts or author blog.
This online design tool contains useful templates with the correct dimensions for all of the major social platforms, as well as a plethora of free and stock photos, illustrations, and fonts. It’s a simple drag-and-drop editor that makes creating slick promotional materials a breeze.
The Hemingway App is another useful tool that is not related to productivity. You can use this free text checker to identify overly complex words that can be replaced with simpler alternatives, to identify and remove weakening passive voice, and more.
Milanote is yet another flexible tool for brainstorming, saving story research, and other purposes. Clip articles into an organized system for retrieving factual information to use in your story, or structure your process using one of the many templates available.
Concluding lines
Segregating your writing time and your novel into manageable chunks is essential for staying productive and building a publishable manuscript scene by scene. If you want to become a successful writer, you need to first learn how to become a productive writer. But what does it really take to be productive? Well, writers have to develop conscious habits that make them productive. And not just in a mysterious, theoretical way, but in a concrete, actionable way.
People can achieve their objectives if they break them down into actionable steps. It’s no different when it comes to becoming a productive writer. It’s all too easy to tell yourself, “Just be productive.” When you don’t have a proven process in place, it’s much more difficult to make it happen.
Once you’re comfortable and familiar with these writing tools, you’ll see that productivity doesn’t have to be difficult or time-consuming. On the contrary, becoming a productive writer will make your writing journey more enjoyable and, yes, worthwhile of your time and attention!
There is no one way to use all of these aforementioned productivity tools perfectly, but a successful writer will. Hence, the onus is on you to figure out how to use them most effectively in your writing life and incorporate them into your writing process right away.
All the writers have reached a point where they were afraid to tell people that they were working on a book. It makes it feel a little too real, like an obligation. But it’s essential as every writer needs this project to feel real. All the writers, irrespective of their positions, must be able to say aloud to others, “I am writing a book.”
