Are you a naturally organised person?
Some writers are. Others are emphatically not! And many, like me, fall somewhere in the middle: they'd like to be organised, but the reality of their writing life consists of stacks of half-filled notebooks, scribbled to-do lists, lots of books yet to be read, more pens than any one person could possibly need, a rather unsatisfactory filing "system" involving stacks of paper ...
Does it matter? Do you need to be organised if you want to be a successful writer?
Some writers seem to thrive in the midst of chaos: they write surrounded by empty coffee mugs and with stacks of books sliding off the desk and onto the floor.
Others use organisation as an excuse not to write: they spend ages rearranging their desk or getting all their books into alphabetical order.
And some types of writing might seem more in need of organisation than others. If you're a poet or a novelist, you may feel that a certain level of creative mess is to be expected. And you may not feel that it particularly gets in the way of you working.
Freelancers, on the other hand, or any writer working on multiple different projects, will probably find that some degree of organisation is necessary.
Personally, I get stressed when I'm too disorganised. I worry about missing deadlines if I'm not tracking them somehow; I fret about little things slipping through the gaps if they're not on my to-do list. Before I had kids, I could keep more of my day-to-day work life stored safely in my head; these days, there's so much going on that I try to write everything down!
If, like me, you're perhaps not super-organised by nature but you'd like to make faster progress as a writer, here are three things you can try:
#1: Find (and USE!) a Good Task-Tracking System
This could be almost anything that works for you. Over the years, I've used:
- A single sheet of paper each week (back when I was working just a few hours around a full-time day job)
- A small notebook with a page of tasks for each day
- "The Journal" from DavidRM Software
- Nozbe, an app that I can use on my computer, phone and other devices
- Various physical planners
- Asana (at my current full-time day job)
Although creating to-do lists and tracking tasks can seem a bit mundane, it frees me up creatively to know that I can trust my software, instead of my brain, to remember everything.
There are loads of different systems out there, from digital assistants like Alexa and Siri, to apps, to good old pen and paper. Find something that works for you, and get in the habit of using it.
#2: Use One Notebook Per Project
If you're working on a big writing project, like a book, novel or blog, and you want to make handwritten notes, use one notebook for that project if at all possible.
Don't end up with notes scattered all over the place on different bits of paper, or with notebooks that have notes on everything from webinars you've attended to short story competitions you want to enter to Christmas present ideas.
I've also found that dedicating a particular notebook to a particular project is a nice way to start off something new: to say to yourself that this project merits some space, time and consideration.
#3: Have Regular Checklists or Routines
I use a lot of regular checklists in my work and in my daily life, and like task-tracking, these help me to get things out of my head and onto paper.
As a writer, you might develop checklists for things like:
- Writing a blog post: what exactly do you need to do (and what do you often forget?)
- Sending a guest post pitch, following up, writing the post, and so on
- Starting or ending your writing day
- Taking on a new client: what do you need to ask them and tell them
Getting organised with thesethings not only saves you time (and prevents you making annoying mistakes), it also frees you up to focus on what really matters – your writing itself.
If you're not as organised as you'd like to be, pick one small thing to do this week that will help. That could mean getting a new notebook, committing to writing a to-do list each day, writing a checklist to use for a task you do repeatedly, or anything that will make your writing life run a little more smoothly.
