I wrote 7 time management articles yesterday.
It was fast. It was furious. It wasn’t pretty.
The results were good. (And I plan on making them great before publishing.) Yet, the speedy effort blasted through a block of content creation that I was avoiding.
Sometimes haste makes progress, not waste.
When Haste Doesn’t Make Waste
People often ask me how to get more done. Whether it is to be more productive in their job, their personal life, or in their creative efforts.
My answer is that sometimes you just have to put the pedal down.
And generate some speed.
Yesterday, I used speed to help me accomplish a large amount of writing.
I opened a text editor and wrote for over an hour. I typed as fast as I could. I didn’t stop to correct grammatical errors and I let typos fall where they may.
When I was done, I had written 7 articles. (Whew!)
(Note: For those of you spending 2–3 hours writing a single document, you need to accelerate your efforts.)
Fast But Not Pretty
Try accelerating your efforts today.
If you are writing a document (or book!)… just write.
Let the ideas flow. Get them out of your head. Let your fingers fly. Don’t stop for typos, mistakes, or incomplete sentences.
Just GO.
And this speed concept doesn’t just apply to writing.
When brainstorming… let the ideas cover the page or whiteboard.
When prototyping… don’t make it pretty, just express the idea.
In meetings… reduce the time allowed instead of expanding it. You will accomplish more in less time.
Go a little faster and you might surprise yourself.
The Speed of Progress
I can already hear you saying, “But, doesn’t haste mean waste?”
Or, “If I don’t do it right the first time… I’m going to have to do it again.”
Both of these adages are true.
Yet, sometimes what you need is pure speed.
Speed to overcome procrastination.
Speed to spark creativity.
Speed to generate ideas.
Speed to smash deadlines.
Speed to get ahead of the pack.
Speed can do all of these things when used appropriately.
Question: Where could you use a little more speed in your productivity and life? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
7 articles in an hour? Wow! That IS impressive. It would take me much longer than that, but I tend to edit and format my articles at the same time. I’ll need to try and just write without editing the text, and see how it goes.
Great tips, Craig!
Ashely… yes… 7. However, I will caution that they were all *rough* 1st drafts. They will be edited and groomed. However, speed-writing is a great way to get ideas out of your head.
My friend, John Saddington (@saddington) used to hold a Blogapalooza… where bloggers would come together and speed write for 2 hours. I think I wrote 11 articles at the one I attended… but John wrote something like 25. 😛
But still, at least you have most of your content written already – editing it and/or adding images is easier.
And that is INSANE! 😀 John has mad skills.
I could use a little more speed in my lesson planning. It seems to take me forever.
Yes!!!!!!
This article really resonated with me because time-boxing works extremely well for me and I never really stopped to consider why it works so well. I suppose it’s really speeding me in in a sense which helps me to get in the flow of things much quicker. T