3 Tips for Writing on the Go
I’ve freelanced from home for years. But I CANNOT stay in my abode every. Single. Day. I end up like Peter from Office Space, leaving for lunch at 9:30 a.m.
I follow these 3 basic tips to get a change of scenery without too much tech and time risk.
If I were to add anything to this video, it would be this: Do not underestimate the way a new environment will distract you. I end up half listening to conversations. Wondering about whether to buy a muffin at the counter. Watching others come and go. The brain loves novelty and will pay attention to what’s different if you allow it to.
SO…
Your best bet for high productivity when you’re writing or working on another project away from home or the office is to select scenes or projects where you’ve already got a sense of direction and don’t have to think too much. Have your outline ready to go with a broad concept of what you want to write. That way, it’s just a matter of making sure you check the boxes.
Of course, sometimes going out with NO agenda can be wonderful. You can let your mind wander and just see what words come out. If you can take some of those sessions, awesome. But when you have a serious deadline and can’t have an excuse for a blank page, planning ahead can be a viable and reliable strategy.
[Transcript summary]
Well, hello, everybody. I’m Wanda Thibodeaux of takingdictation.com. And I don’t know about you, but it has been super, super cold out. But I have had such cabin fever here in Minnesota, even though it’s been super cold, I just had to get out of my house. The question is, how do you do that as a freelancer and still work, right? So, of course, you can go to the library, coffee shops, those kinds of places, but you need to be efficient as you do it. So, here are some tips that I can give you as you work in other places, aside from your house.
So, the first thing that I want to recommend is, if you can afford it, just get a inexpensive tablet, inexpensive laptop, as kind of a spare, okay? Because you don’t, if you’re moving this thing around all the time, chances are you’re gonna drop it, you’re gonna leave it in your car overnight. And so, if gets stolen, those kinds of things, you don’t want a huge loss. But the idea is, you don’t want it to be so inconvenient, you’re like, “Oh my gosh. Now I’ve got to all plug everything, and got to move it.” And then if you do have a loss, you’ve lost everything, right? So, just have what I call a beater machine, okay, that you can just take with you. And, you know, you can get something refurbished. It does not have to be super expensive.
The other thing is, when you are planning that out and getting those devices, make sure that you get some extra cables, because, again, you don’t want to just say, “Oh, I don’t want to go, because it’s such a hassle to unplug everything and then I — just half the extra cables, keep them in your bag, and then, grab your bag, you’re gone.
The last thing that I would recommend is that as you’re setting all this up, you are making sure that you have a plan for what files that you need. Because some things, like working in Canva for a social media post if you’re doing an image or something, that’s so much harder to do on a small screen, right? So you wanna plan it out so that you have everything already downloaded in your machine, everything so that most of the stuff is just drag and drop, you type a little bit, you hit publish and you’re done, okay? You don’t want to be fiddling around, waiting things for things to download. You know, that’s just such a waste of time. Plan it out in advance so that when you do leave the house — because remember, you are going to lose some time going to wherever you’re going, okay, so when you do get there, you’ve got to be really efficient with your time. So, anything that you can do to prep those in advance should be helpful to keep your session really productive.
So, take care everybody. Bye.