002 On Writing Productively – ProductivityCast

Writing productively is as much a skill as it is an art. And, you probably find yourself writing more today than you might think. When it comes to being productive, your ability to write well is of paramount importance. In this episode, Ray and Augusto discuss how they approach and the tools they use for writing productively, and hopefully it gives you some perspective on your writing and productivity. Enjoy! Ask us your questions, and give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to discuss this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below. In this Cast - On Writing Productively Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Show Notes - On Writing Productively Resources we mention, including links to them will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Annie Proulx Was Charles Dickens paid by the word? 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Evernote Scrivener Grammarly / iCab mobile browser Apple Pages yWriter 5 Boomerang Gmail - Respondable Zotero Getting Things Done by David Allen Imposter Syndrome Brene Brown TED Talks Slack Pareto Principle Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott Robert Hass Raw Text Transcript - On Writing Productively 0:00:00.000,0:00:04.110 are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a more 0:00:04.110,0:00:07.109 fulfilling productive life then you've come to the right place 0:00:07.109,0:00:12.570 welcome to productivity cast the weekly show about all things productivity here 0:00:12.570,0:00:16.770 are your hosts Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud 0:00:16.770,0:00:21.420 welcome productivity cast listeners to our second episode to find the links to 0:00:21.420,0:00:25.140 all the resources we discussed a raw transcript if you want to find the time 0:00:25.140,0:00:28.710 signature of where we discussed something specific or listen back to 0:00:28.710,0:00:33.390 this episode from your desktop please visit productivity cast net forward 0:00:33.390,0:00:38.040 slash 0:02 everything you need about this episode is available at 0:00:38.040,0:00:42.510 productivity cast net forward slash zero zero two and with that in this episode 0:00:42.510,0:00:48.360 we're going to be discussing writing and productivity enjoy I just want to get 0:00:48.360,0:00:52.860 right into it because this is a really important topic I think to everyone who 0:00:52.860,0:00:57.180 is a Productivity enthusiast and really wants to understand how to be more 0:00:57.180,0:01:00.660 productive in their daily lives I mean from everything we do in our work 0:01:00.660,0:01:05.309 days there there is some you know form of writing and we can do it more 0:01:05.309,0:01:09.570 effectively you know more efficiently and I think that there are many things 0:01:09.570,0:01:13.110 we should think about when it comes to writing whether it be addressing an 0:01:13.110,0:01:17.610 email appropriately using email appropriately being able to write that 0:01:17.610,0:01:23.040 next report being able to write you know even just filling out forms and even 0:01:23.040,0:01:26.700 writing longer materials whether that be blog posts which a lot of us have to do 0:01:26.700,0:01:30.540 for work now and because of social media and then you 0:01:30.540,0:01:33.930 know if you're if you're an author or some other kind of creative professional 0:01:33.930,0:01:38.280 and you're looking to you know write longer materials it's really important 0:01:38.280,0:01:42.899 for you to be able to do this in the most productive manner and so I just 0:01:42.899,0:01:47.850 wanted to kick it in with some sort of general principles for being able to to 0:01:47.850,0:01:53.520 write productively and so so let's just start off with basically the the what I 0:01:53.520,0:01:57.360 believe is the initial and augusto you can push back if you if you think I'm 0:01:57.360,0:02:02.009 off off point here but I really believe that reading is fundamental right it's 0:02:02.009,0:02:06.630 really important for us to remember that in order to be good writers we have to 0:02:06.630,0:02:11.410 be good readers because if you don't know what what and how to read well then 0:02:11.410,0:02:15.490 you're not going to have the experience with the written word that's necessary 0:02:15.490,0:02:20.920 for you to be able to put words down on paper or on screen that are really going 0:02:20.920,0:02:25.750 to be effective if you don't read you can't write okay and in a way if you 0:02:25.750,0:02:32.800 think on a weight training K what what a way trainer do is a series of exercises 0:02:32.800,0:02:37.900 so he can't own his muscles okay and he did that daily and he do that constantly 0:02:37.900,0:02:42.820 I mean writing is exactly the same thing you need to read constantly and all the 0:02:42.820,0:02:47.530 time and different things because people think oh well I'm going to be I want to 0:02:47.530,0:02:51.580 write or I'm going to be writing about business so I don't need I'm not in the 0:02:51.580,0:02:56.170 business of reading fiction and I completely disagree I think you need to 0:02:56.170,0:03:02.290 set a schedule of read everything from fiction to business to self-improvement 0:03:02.290,0:03:08.980 to productivity to even religion in the sense that it will show you how 0:03:08.980,0:03:15.400 different people use different ways to express the same things and I'm not 0:03:15.400,0:03:21.580 advocating copy any of those styles but it will allow you to understand and to 0:03:21.580,0:03:28.630 identify your own style no and if you can spend the time to read and to do 0:03:28.630,0:03:32.440 that training at the end of the day how'd you expect you're going to be 0:03:32.440,0:03:36.280 ready for the moment that you are going to be trying to compete that is at the 0:03:36.280,0:03:40.750 moment you're going to be trying not to write that text over the years have 0:03:40.750,0:03:45.040 people coming to me and say well how how can you write this much and say well 0:03:45.040,0:03:48.820 it's simple just what every day okay just sit and write every day could you 0:03:48.820,0:03:54.280 read every day and if you can only have a 10 minute to read every day then you 0:03:54.280,0:03:58.330 only have 5 minutes to write every day because a relationship I think need to 0:03:58.330,0:04:02.739 be two to one twice the time of reading for the time you want to write yeah I 0:04:02.739,0:04:08.470 have to say I am guilty I have to have to make the productivity confession that 0:04:08.470,0:04:15.820 I have always leaned into nonfiction reading and it's it's so powerful to be 0:04:15.820,0:04:22.700 able to utilize fiction based writing techniques when you are writing non 0:04:22.700,0:04:26.419 you know and I primarily write nonfiction and you know I I have to say 0:04:26.419,0:04:30.350 you know you're absolutely right Augusto it's so important it's almost imperative 0:04:30.350,0:04:35.450 that you read both sides and different genres you know from everything from 0:04:35.450,0:04:40.760 Rumi to Shakespeare to to books that have been translated from other 0:04:40.760,0:04:46.010 languages it really does give you a sense of how to communicate in the most 0:04:46.010,0:04:50.990 broad way with specificity you know and I mean Broadway to the broadest audience 0:04:50.990,0:04:56.810 and with specificity meaning writing efficiently basically writing so that 0:04:56.810,0:05:02.720 every word counts and and I think you know some people sort of hear you know 0:05:02.720,0:05:07.430 sort of the e Annie Proulx sort of writing with with such specificity that 0:05:07.430,0:05:12.650 you know you write very very precisely and therefore not as many words I don't 0:05:12.650,0:05:17.180 necessarily mean that but I do mean that you should you should make most words 0:05:17.180,0:05:21.260 count right I mean you know you're not Charles Dickens you're not being paid by 0:05:21.260,0:05:26.419 the word I presume you're not being paid by the word if you are then I'll 0:05:26.419,0:05:31.070 continue continue Dickens is you know a perspective there but if you're not 0:05:31.070,0:05:33.830 getting paid by the word you know you should still you should 0:05:33.830,0:05:37.789 still make sure that your that your words count and and so many times I 0:05:37.789,0:05:43.130 receive an email from somebody and you know it's just it's just so wordy and 0:05:43.130,0:05:48.169 and I I not again I'll probably second confession of the of the podcast this 0:05:48.169,0:05:52.100 week is that I I happen to be a wordy writer you know I tend to write multiple 0:05:52.100,0:05:56.210 paragraph emails and we'll talk about this when we get to sort of tools we can 0:05:56.210,0:06:01.190 use you know I've used the tool recently to help me sort of cut down on that 0:06:01.190,0:06:05.330 because I did find myself writing you know four or five six seven paragraphs 0:06:05.330,0:06:10.930 of email and then recognizing that while those emails were well-written they were 0:06:10.930,0:06:15.110 unnecessary and they're probably going to compete with my ability to go ahead 0:06:15.110,0:06:19.910 and get a response so always good to know that that you should be reading and 0:06:19.910,0:06:22.669 you should also be reading your own writing and I think that's really 0:06:22.669,0:06:27.229 important that's a that's a mechanism for you to be able to see a final 0:06:27.229,0:06:31.820 product from a year ago to see where you were to where you are now 0:06:31.820,0:06:35.060 and I think it's really helpful to see how how you grow and progress as a 0:06:35.060,0:06:38.900 writer two things in what you said I don't one now it's good to know that my 0:06:38.900,0:06:42.740 emails are short pasted on your standard ...