As a freelance writer, your rates are probably tied – in some way – to how fast you can write.

You may charge by the hour (which penalizes you for writing faster, btw).

Or you may have project rates based off of how long it takes you to complete.

In some way or another, your income depends at least somewhat on how fast you write.

So, writing faster is one way to increase your income potential.

Take a look at how this works:

An article that pays $150 nets you $150/hour if you complete it in an hour or $50/hour if you complete it in 3 hours. That’s a difference of $100 an hour!

You want to finish that article in 1 hour for the best returns.

When you write faster, you can complete more projects and increase your income potential.

So, you want to know how to write faster. 

But to understand how to write faster, it’s helpful to understand what slows you down the most.

Follow along with the video version here:

What Slows Down Your Writing

I don’t know about you, but some of my biggest time suckers are:

• Skipping around among a bajillion open tabs
• Environmental distractions (“squirrel!”)
• Not being able to find exactly the right words
• Lack of direction for the content
• Intensive research

Now, typing speed and discipline can also play a role in how fast your write, but I don’t think they play as big of a role as the factors above. There are resources to help you increase your typing speed and all of that, but think about what really slows you down.

I think distraction and spending too much time on tasks has more impact on speed than actual finger dexterity.

What else slows you down?

Once you have an idea of what hinders your momentum, you can address it to write faster.

Here are my tips.

How to Write Faster

Minimize tab jumping

If you have a habit of clicking around among all your tabs, you need to eliminate that distraction in one of several ways. First, of course, you can close all those tabs. But if you’re anything like me, that’s just not practical.

Instead, you can cut the click with a full-screen writing program. My favorite is the Calmly app. You can toggle an open document to full screen and type without seeing any of your other open tabs.

Otherwise, you can open a new Google window solely for work tabs (right click on the Chrome tab, see below). So, I have one window with email, Pandora, shopping sites, or other personal tabs. Then, I open another window with only work-related tabs. That way, it’s much easier to stay on-task and more difficult to tab surf.

Minimize environmental distractions

Now, I have this theory that two parts of my brain are at work when I’m “at work.” There’s the brain that’s focused on my task and the brain that’s scanning my environment. The scanner brain gets distracted by noises outside, voices in the living room, the kids, the dog, itchy legs, all of it.

So, to calm the scanner brain, I need to reduce environmental input. The best way I’ve found to do that is with instrumental music, or binaural beats in particular. Binaural beats are meant to balance your brainwaves for a certain purpose, whether you need to slow down or pick up. There are beats for concentration, beats for energy, beats for sleep, etc. The binaural beats for concentration help me focus both parts of my brain on my work.

My favorite binaural beats come from mynoise.net. There are also a bunch of binaural beat playlists on Spotify. Put the earbuds in, turn the beats on, and you can tune out those scanner-brained distractions.

Find the right words

When I’m writing, I often know what I’m trying to say, but don’t always have the right words to say it. It takes some thought to come up with exactly the right words. Now, tools like the online thesaurus can help you pick out words. Word Hippo is another great tool, because you can find “another way to say” different phrases.

However, before you even try to find the right words, I encourage you to just word vomit all over the page. Just get out what you’re trying to say, and do it sloppy. Don’t edit that first draft. I like to just throw brackets around the words or phrases that I need to fix later and keep writing. The brackets allow me to visually find what I need to return to.

You should also take frequent breaks, unless you’re fully in-the-zone. Don’t mess with zone writing. But when you’re at a loss for words or feeling clunky, take short breaks every once an hour or so and come back with a refreshed mind. Many times, those words you were looking for will surface after a mind break.

Give direction to your words

Next, let’s say you sit down to write a post for a client but have no idea what direction to take it.

To this, I say: Template everything.

Even a simplistic template can help you get started.

For example, a 500-word blog post template can be as simple as:

• Headline
• Intro
• Point one
• Point two
• Point three
• Summary

All you have to do is figure out what your main point is, and usually your client tells you what that is. Then, all you have to do is fill in points one, two, three, and so on to support that main point.

This looks too easy, but let me tell you, having a format in front of you gives you a sense of direction for where you’re going with your article. You can do the same for emails and web pages. You can put together a wireframe and a process for each page. You can put together an outline for every email.

You can also put together a checklist of requirements for each piece of copy. For example, your blog post may need a certain word count and a pinnable image with alt text copy. Put all those tasks on a list. You may want to keep a list of keywords and SEO checkpoints in front of you. An outline and checklist including all these tasks will speed up your writing time by bunches.

Reverse research

Research can slow you down, big time. Now, in some instances, you really do need to do thorough, lengthy research. But if you’re doing more of a general interest post than a journalistic piece, you don’t need to nor should you spend as much time on research.

You can do what I call “reverse research,” which means you write out your post first and then go back and find research to support it later. For example, say you’re writing a post about the importance of water for weight loss. You know water supports metabolism. So what you can do is write a section on metabolism. Get everything you want to say on paper, and then go back and find research to support it afterward.

Now, you do have to be careful not to cite disproven or poor research or let your own confirmation biases skew your piece. But you can speed up your writing process by making a statement and finding resources to back it up later.

Bonus tip to quicken your writing speed

Here’s a psychological tip I swear by. Use a timer. All you have to do is do a search for “timer,” and Google will automatically bring a timer up for you. If you want to finish an article in an hour, set your timer for 60 minutes and go.

This little tool tricks your brain into production mode.

There’s something about the timer that makes you buckle down and push out content. Even if you don’t finish your article in 60 minutes, you’ll finish it a lot faster under the pressure of a timer than if you leave your work up to “unlimited time.”

Now, I know you probably weren’t expecting these types of simple tricks to help you write faster. You were probably looking for some kind of lesson in writing or typing speed. But in my experience, writing speed is more about productivity skills, not so much keyboard skills (as long as you aren’t typing with one finger).

You’ll be able to write quicker over time, as you learn your niche and establish your own writing patterns, but these tips will make an incredible difference if you give them a try. I return to these tools again and again when I notice my speed dragging. I hope they help you too!

How about you,

What are your favorite tricks for how to write faster?