Deadlines wouldn’t exist in an ideal world. You would have an endless amount of time to do all the writing assignments you have, including reports, essays, reading replies, and even the writing you like doing on your own, such as blog entries and short tales. In such cases, some tips to improve your writing speed may be useful.
Our world isn’t flawless. However, you may learn to write more quickly in the environment in which we live. Thousands of authors have found that writing rapidly helps them easily meet deadlines, particularly when they have time-sensitive responsibilities like journalists and interviewers. It’s not hard to write more quickly. We’ve put up a few useful writing suggestions to help you maximize your writing time and meet deadlines quickly.
Tips To Increase Speed While Writing
1. Streamline The Writing Process
It’s quite probable that you are acquainted with the writing process. It’s the six stages that almost all written works go through to transform from a concept to a finished work that is published. It might take some time to complete these processes, but doing so will ensure that you thoroughly brainstorm, outline, write, revise, and proofread your work. You don’t have the luxury of following the whole writing process when you’re pressed for time.
Combining stages one and two and outlining your work while you brainstorm are two ways to speed up the writing process. This may result in a less cohesive plan, but that’s okay since you’ll make it better as you write. That is one of the tips to improve your writing speed.
Once you have a plan on paper, start writing. The idea of the writing process is to get words down. You’ll eliminate any unnecessary, uncomfortable, or irrelevant words from your content throughout the editing process. When it comes to editing, you’ll also need to exclude a crucial phase from the writing process: rewriting your work.
To make it easier to spot errors, you should ideally revise your work a day or two after you start writing. However, you won’t have much time, so as soon as you complete writing, you’ll need to start editing. The latter two writing steps—editing and proofreading—may also need to be combined, depending on how time-constrained you are.
2. Practice Typing Faster
Although at first it may seem like a snarky suggestion on how to write faster, we mean this: Develop your typing speed. You may do this by engaging in finger-muscle memory-building typing exercises and typing games. You should learn how to type without looking at the keyboard if you currently do it.
Likewise, it’s time to develop into a stronger, quicker typer if you’re using the “hunt and peck” technique or any other technique that involves employing any less than all ten fingers. Typing classes and exercises are available on websites such as typingtest.com, which can also tell you how correctly you’re typing and how many words you can type in a minute.
The normal aim for “fast typing” is 65 to 70 words per minute, although the typical individual types approximately 40 words per minute. It is regarded as very fast typing to type 90–100 words per minute; some of the quickest typists may reach speeds of over 120 words per minute. You can write more quickly when you can type more quickly. It is one of the best tips to improve your writing speed.
3. Write Things Are In Your Mind
It’s possible that you know precisely how you want to support your thesis, but you have no clue how to begin your essay. Go directly to your paragraphs of the body. Two goals are accomplished by writing the passages you already know you want to say:
It gets text on the page: You may find that seeing text on the page inspires you to write more, as it’s much simpler to continue when you have a solid base from which to grow.
It may advise you on what to write in the areas that you haven’t yet written: Writing your supporting paragraphs will help you come up with the structure and language you need to present them in your opening section if you’re having trouble coming up with an introduction. Likewise, if you’ve produced at least one body paragraph but are struggling with others, figure out how that paragraph fits into the larger composition.
4. Make A Routine
Even though it might be tempting to start writing immediately, you should take your time and establish a writing regimen. You might begin by deciding on a consistent writing time each day. You should be most productive and attentive during this time of day, as well as inspired. Your brain becomes used to anticipating writing since it happens simultaneously. This may facilitate your ability to write more naturally.
Think about creating a kind of ceremony around the meeting. You may do this by making food or a drink to go with it, moving to a different area of the home, visiting a café, or listening to a certain playlist. All of this helps in putting you in the zone and gets your mind ready for writing.
You aim to write quickly, so don’t spend too much time meditating before starting. Instead, take a few minutes to center yourself and consider the writing job at hand. Envision the content you want to write and how it will appear on the page. As much as possible, free your thoughts from other problems and distractions in your life so that you may write with clarity and attention.
Believing that writing is a time waster is a significant barrier to overcome. If you believe it, you will find it difficult to start at all or to generate high-quality work. Rather, question yourself honestly about your views about writing; if they are negative, focus on and alter your thinking patterns.
5. Use Placeholders
There will undoubtedly come a time when you are typing and unsure of what to say next. It might be as little as a sentence or two, or it could be a paragraph or a way to go from one area to another. Simply enter the first two letters of each of these cases: TK, one of the tips to improve your writing speed.
To do this, TK is an antiquated journalistic technique. This is a visual stop that you won’t unintentionally overlook while editing your work. The letters stand for “to come,” but a K is utilized instead of a C since few English sentences employ the TK combination.
You may highlight your TK or choose a strong color for the text to make it even more noticeable. Here, the goal is to keep your writing flowing without forcing you to pause, consider your options, and figure out how to fit more information into your copy.
6. Accept You Will Make Mistakes
Do you strive for perfection? There are so many of us. However, one of the best ways to reduce your writing pace is to put excessive pressure on yourself to write perfectly and to feel sorry for your errors. Even if turning off spell check is effective, internal voices might be more detrimental than the program itself.
Work self-editing forces you to start doubting your work and your method. This significantly slows you down. Breathe deeply, let go of the need to correct yourself, and continue writing whenever it arises. It becomes easier to stay in your flow state when you push yourself harder to not be a perfectionist as you write.
Author Anne Lamott urges authors to accept what she refers to as “sh**** first drafts” in her book Bird By Bird. Stated differently, to just let everything out without attempting to make it flawless. Recall that when you finish writing, you will edit. All those errors will be fixed.
7. Research Before Writing
You need to get rid of everything that is preventing you from writing more quickly. Before you touch a keypad or pick up a pen, do some extensive study. By doing research, which is an answer to how to write faster, you may get a thorough understanding of your subject and become acquainted with its vocabulary, jargon, reliable sources, and most recent advancements.
You may copy and paste pertinent thoughts, notes, information, quotations, stories, and statistics into a blank page to serve as a guide when you begin writing. While you are trying to think of what to write or how to frame an idea, your reference material helps keep you from looking at the blinking cursor and blank page.
It allows you to match the direction of your content to the questions and problems that your readers are trying to address. It is one of the most essential tips to improve your writing speed.
8. Write Without Editing
Many authors make the mistake of trying to produce a flawless piece that completely satisfies the brief and doesn’t need editing in the first draft. That isn’t the most effective approach, particularly if you want to write more quickly.
The first draft is meant to help you get your thoughts down on paper. Recognize that the draft is a creative zone and release yourself from the need to be flawless. You may freely express your ideas here since you’ll have time to make changes throughout the editing process.
To get over self-criticism and write more quickly, try freewriting exercises. These include writing without glancing at the computer. Ignore the grammatical errors, spell-checker’s red underlining, and typos. Editing as you write slows down your writing rate and takes your attention away from really writing, so just keep writing to keep your train of thought moving.
9. Get Going
You have to run when you have to write quickly. Set up your writing sprints using timers. You may use an old-fashioned kitchen timer that you end up with, set a timer on your phone, or put one in a different tab of your browser. It is simpler to remain focused and write for the whole time you have set when you divide your time into manageable parts like this.
When you write as many words as you can in the five or ten minutes that you’ve given yourself, picture yourself as a sprinter charging full speed toward the finish line. Shorten your sprint intervals and take a little break in between.
Many authors find that when they have a goal to accomplish, sprinting is the simplest thing to do. Reward yourself if you belong to that group for accomplishing your word count targets. You may give yourself a piece of candy or thirty minutes of video gaming, depending on what kind of incentive works best for you. And treat yourself with strictness! No incentives until your objective is accomplished.
The Advantages of Writing Faster
With the tips to improve your writing speed, the advantages of writing more quickly are many. These are the major ones:
Higher organic traffic: The more content you produce, the more keywords and subjects you may write about on your website, increasing the likelihood that people will discover you. Writing more quickly allows you to produce, update, and publish more content, which raises your SEO relevance and ranking. Not to add, Google favors recently updated information.
Better productivity: Increasing your writing speed might help you be more productive at work. In this manner, you may oversee many projects, fulfill deadlines, or devote time to other business-related activities like marketing and customer interactions. Additionally, as a freelance writer, your pay will increase with productivity.
Enhanced competitiveness: An important competitive advantage in sectors where trends and customer preferences shift fast is the capacity to produce high-quality content quickly.
FAQ
Q: How can I write more quickly and painlessly?
A: Instead of using your fingers to manipulate the pen or pencil, use your wrist and forearm. To maintain a relaxed wrist, particularly while writing with your left hand, flip your writing paper or place it on an incline. Try holding the pen in the space between your index and middle fingers if writing causes pain in your thumb.
Q: Which writing style is the fastest?
A: The fact that writing in cursive script is quicker than printing each letter is one of the reasons behind this. You raise your pen less often since the cursive letters are linked, which reduces the amount of time needed to create the letters.
Q: What does handwriting speed mean?
A: Studies have shown that students in grades 3-6 write between 25 and 94 letters per minute on average. This rate rises significantly when stenography (shorthand) techniques are used. In shorthand contests, handwriting speeds of up to 350 words per minute have been recorded.
