Feeling the need for speed

One lament a writing coach hears alot is ‘I feel I am too slow at writing’. It is a consistent theme, and something many of my clients feel they want to ‘fix’. First, I wonder what they mean, and on further inquiry it seems like they feel they don’t ‘do enough’, get ‘through enough’ ‘publish enough’.

I wonder ‘what is enough?’ Have a think about that first. What would be enough for you? Because whatever that means, that is what I am here to help them achieve through coaching. We all have different lives, different aspirations, and different requirements in our job, so ‘enough’ differs wildly. Sometimes publishing requirements are made explicit by your employer, and sometimes they are rumour mill and peer pressure driven. Sometimes you decide your own targets, created by any number of factors.

But let’s think through, this not ‘enough’ feeling. It is probably not really externally set, but internally framed. Usually clients eventually talk about speed. Speed of delivery. Speed of progress. Speed of execution.

It’s the leak in the pipe

When we explore in more detail, I find out a number of things. My writers are collapsing the writing (text creation) into the editing (crafting), with the thinking (intellectual development of their ideas), with the research and note taking (the foundation of their research), with the OUTPUT. Well. All of this added together is a fairly long process and it should be. It becomes longer than necessary when these processes are out of sync - if you even have a process - and you go round and around and around what should be distinct stages of exciting your writing.. In fact, you probably don’t really see them as distinct aspects of ‘writing’. This means there are inefficiencies in your approach, but slowness, speed, is not the issue. The issue is the leak in the pipe, and it is my job to find and repair that that leaky process.

Speed comes from reducing friction

Once the leak in the pipe is remedied, though what next? Through training, workshops, courses or 1-1 coaching, we start to refine your execution. It’s basic physics. Where there is friction, things slow down. Where there is a smooth, unimpeded journey, things pick up speed. Momentum carries you through even when the odd speed bump presents itself. That is what we try to create in a coaching relationship. Friction reduction, and solid reliable processes that remove leaks in the pipe.

If you are looking to increase your speed in ‘writing’ then, have a think about where the real inefficiencies lie. Is there a better way to collate data? Sometimes, you don’t know, what you don’t know. No-one ever showed you, or told you about other ways to do things and you are still doing the things you have always done because ‘that is just how I do it’. But could there be a better way? Is there a faster way to assemble your research material and make extraction of the important things both quick and reliable? Do you turn up to writing without a plan or notes (or ideas)? Are there barriers to writing that are deeper, and manifest themselves in procrastination, imposter syndrome and perfectionism?

Once you have a clear idea of what your ‘enough’ constitutes, you can start to examine the mechanics of writing and find the friction.

We all feel the need for speed, but locating the leaks in the pipe, and the identifying the causes of friction, are the first steps to achieving it.