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Writing Productivity Hacks

Bryan Young
June 13, 2024 | 4 min read
It is a truth universally acknowledged that finding focus in the digital age is impossible.
Everything we do is optimized for productivity, so it's no wonder that we get lost scrolling for hours on end. Consuming is so much easier than creating.
Whether you're a seasoned author, a struggling student, or a pro journalist, focus and productivity are important — and difficult to find. To help, we gathered the top writing hacks that are relatively easy to implement and will help you streamline your process.
By integrating these hacks into your creative process, you can cultivate a more productive and prolific writing life.
In this article:

1. Learn from the Pros

As in anything, first and foremost, we like to look to the professionals for advice. Seeing how Ernest Hemingway liked to write or reviewing Stephen King's routine are not only fun and interesting, they're downright educational.

And the best part is that every writing process is as unique as every writer. So go research your favorite author's writing process. Just make sure to take the tips and tricks that serve you — and leave the rest.

Writing Tips from Prolific Writers

2. Set Writing Goals

We are firm believers in this one, and so are psychologists. Research shows that setting achievable goals (key word: achievable) is a concrete way to push yourself toward higher achievement, whatever that may look like for you.

It turns out that people who set goals are more self-confident, have higher levels of motivation, and are more independent.

Concrete goals give you something tangible to work toward, and that is often the difference between completing a manuscript and giving up entirely.

Learn how to set effective writing goals, backed by psychology, that will actually help you smash your word count targets right here.

 

3. Build a Routine

Some of the greatest writers of all time swear by their writing routine, and it's for good reason. Once you've set your goals, there's no better way to reach those goals than to make writing part of your everyday routine.

4. Utilize Writing Sprints

So much of writing is managing your time. But how do you make the most of your time when the words just won't flow? Try writing sprints.

It turns out a little competition — with others or yourself — can really push the process forward, even when it feels like slogging through mud.

5. Make It a Habit

Humans are creatures of habit. Which is great, because habits free up mental energy by automating our actions and allowing us to focus on more complex tasks — like writing.

For example, when sitting down in your favorite armchair at 5 p.m. to write becomes a habit, you don't have to expend the mental energy deciding whether to do that. And that makes getting started a lot easier.

There are many ways we can leverage our tendency toward the habitual to aid us in the writing process. Good writing habits, when used correctly, can help us get into a regular rhythm that keeps us focused during our writing time.

Find out what habits experts recommend writers cultivate here.

 

6. Gamify Your Process

There's a lot of powerful neurochemistry that's unleashed by turning difficult tasks into a game. It's called "gamification," and there's a reason the most successful apps of today use it. (How many times has that sad little Duolingo owl shamed you into continuing your daily learning streak?)

The same methods work for writing, too. It's just a matter of implementing them into your own writing process!
We did the heavy work for you by creating Postbox Profiles, which track your key writing stats, and we put together this guide to help you gamify your own writing process.
Read the Gamification of Important Tasks
 

7. Create Your Workspace

We all have a place where we love to write. If we're lucky, we get to arrange it just the way we like it. The key is to create a space that helps you focus and inspires you.

Because that's the ideal writing space: whether it's a fixed point in your house, or a setup that travels with you, the point of this space is not to be pretty or professional, or to impress others or look good on social media.

The point is to create an ambience that gets you in the mood to write.

 

8. Join a Community

The act of writing is a solitary activity. But it's more fun when you can share that activity with others. As Writer & Agent Eric Smith says:

"Not only does [collaborating] make the writing process feel less alone, particularly in times that feel, and are, so wildly difficult to navigate. It can also make you a better writer. Because without a doubt, your collaborator will start to rub off on you in ways you don’t expect."

We couldn't agree more.

But how do you find one? A good place to start is by signing up for writing workshops and retreats. Find writing instructor Bryan Young's take on workshops and retreats here.

January 28, 2026 1 min read

Write every day with the Freewrite team in February.

January 09, 2026 2 min read

A new year means a whole new crop of work is entering the public domain. And that means endless opportunities for retellings, spoofs, adaptations, and fan fiction.

December 30, 2025 3 min read

It’s Freewrite’s favorite time of year. When dictionaries around the world examine language use of the previous year and select a “Word of the Year.”

Of course, there are many different dictionaries in use in the English language, and they all have different ideas about what word was the most influential or saw the most growth in the previous year. They individually review new slang and culturally relevant vocabulary, examine spikes or dips in usage, and pour over internet trend data.

Let’s see what some of the biggest dictionaries decided for 2025. And read to the end for a chance to submit your own Word of the Year — and win a Freewrite gift card.

[SUBMIT YOUR WORD OF THE YEAR]


Merriam-Webster: "slop"

Merriam-Webster chose "slop" as its Word of the Year for 2025 to describe "all that stuff dumped on our screens, captured in just four letters."

The dictionary lists "absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, cheesy propaganda, fake news that looks pretty real, junky AI-written books, 'workslop' reports that waste coworkers’ time … and lots of talking cats" as examples of slop.

The original sense of the word "slop" from the 1700s was “soft mud” and eventually evolved to mean "food waste" and "rubbish." 2025 linked the term to AI, and the rest is history.

Honorable mentions: conclave, gerrymander, touch grass, performative, tariff, 67.

Dictionary.com: "67"

The team at Dictionary.com likes to pick a word that serves as “a linguistic time capsule, reflecting social trends and global events that defined the year.”

For 2025, they decided that “word” was actually a number. Or two numbers, to be exact.

If you’re an old, like me, and don’t know many school-age children, you may not have heard “67” in use. (Note that this is not “sixty-seven,” but “six, seven.”)

Dictionary.com claims the origin of “67” is a song called “Doot Doot (6 7)” by Skrilla, quickly made infamous by viral TikTok videos, most notably featuring a child who will for the rest of his life be known as the “6-7 Kid.” But according to my nine-year-old cousin, the origins of something so mystical can’t ever truly be known.

(My third grade expert also demonstrated the accompanying signature hand gesture, where you place both hands palms up and alternately move up and down.)

And if you happen to find yourself in a fourth-grade classroom, watch your mouth, because there’s a good chance this term has been banned for the teacher’s sanity.

Annoyed yet? Don’t be. As Dictionary.com points out, 6-7 is a rather delightful example at how fast language can develop as a new generation joins the conversation.

Dictionary.com honorable mentions: agentic, aura farming, broligarchy, clanker, Gen Z stare, kiss cam, overtourism, tariff, tradwife.

Oxford Dictionary: "rage bait"

With input from more than 30,000 users and expert analysis, Oxford Dictionary chose "rage bait" for their word of the year.

Specifically, the dictionary pointed to 2025’s news cycle, online manipulation tactics, and growing awareness of where we spend our time and attention online.

While closely paralleling its etymological cousin "clickbait," rage bait more specifically denotes content that evokes anger, discord, or polarization.

Oxford's experts report that use of the term has tripled in the last 12 months.

Oxford Dictionary's honorable mentions:aura farming, biohack.

Cambridge Dictionary: "parasocial"

The Cambridge Dictionary examined a sustained trend of increased searches to choose "parasocial" as its Word of the Year.

Believe it or not, this term was coined by sociologists in 1956, combining “social” with the Greek-derived prefix para-, which in this case means “similar to or parallel to, but separate from.”

But interest in and use of the term exploded this year, finally moving from a mainly academic context to the mainstream.

Cambridge Dictionary's honorable mentions: slop, delulu, skibidi, tradwife

Freewrite: TBD

This year, the Freewrite Fam is picking our own Word of the Year.

Click below to submit what you think the Word of 2025 should be, and we'll pick one submission to receive a Freewrite gift card.

[SUBMIT HERE] 

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