By Nick Usborne
Many commercial writers and copywriters take a perverse pride in working within a messy workspace. There is something “creative” about piles of papers on their desks and acres of files and folders spread around the floor.
There’s some romance in there somewhere.
The trouble is, for most commercial writers, messy working practices translate into inefficient use of time. Find a writer who has a messy workspace, and you’ll also find a writer who doesn’t have efficient working practices. At its simplest level, a messy environment makes it hard to find the information we need for a particular assignment.
But there is a bigger problem here.
Regardless of whether you like working in a messy environment, your brain doesn’t. It doesn’t like it at all. Writers ask me why they constantly feel distracted and unable to focus sharply on the task in front of them. They ask me why they have trouble starting on a new assignment.
They are confused by their inability to sit down and work through a project from start to finish without procrastinating.
My answer is always based on a single premise: If you don’t get organized yourself, your subconscious mind will try to compensate. And while your subconscious mind is busy compensating, you’ll find it very hard to stay focused on anything for very long. You may not “hear” what your mind is saying, but the background noise inside your head is loud enough to disrupt your thinking as you work.
Frank’s subconscious mind may be saying:
“Geez, I hope Frank hasn’t forgotten he has a call with John at 3:00.”
“Hey, Frank! Before you write any more, don’t forget that Doris said she’d be sending you some updated figures this morning!”
“Frank, think about it. The job you’re working on now isn’t due for 6 days. And you still haven’t finished that other job that’s due tomorrow.” And so on.
You have two choices. Get organized, or live with the noise of your subconscious mind trying to get you organized instead. If you choose the latter route, you have a problem. Because when you leave it to your subconscious, all you get is noise and disruption. You don’t really get any coherent plan or structure.
The key to writing well and efficiently is to write with a clear, quiet mind. And the only way to get a clear, quiet mind is to organize your work and your workspace down to the very last detail.
You need to have a comprehensive work schedule laid out. You must have an up-to-the-minute to-do list that you refer to and update several times a day. You must get all the information you need for a job before you get started. And you must allocate a block of time for each task that needs completing.
I say “you must,” and “you need to.” By this I mean you need to do these things if you want to be a highly productive and profitable writer. If you don’t want to work on getting organized, then you can be like most commercial writers… You can work at only a fraction of your productivity potential and lose money hand over fist.
About the Author: Nick Usborne is a 30-year veteran copywriter, author, speaker, trainer and coach. You can find his latest guide to helping writers become more productive at http://www.writingrituals.com/.
