Maximize Your Productivity With This Simple Hack

Dear Friend and Subscriber,

I’ve been swamped these last few weeks. Now, don’t mistake that for a complaint. There are thousands of freelancers out there who would do anything to be in my position right now. However, as busy as I’ve been, the importance of distraction-free writing has risen to the forefront.?

Most of my projects fall in the 1,000-1,200 word range, making it very easy to fall behind. And much to my chagrin, this happened in September.?

I missed a couple of due dates by a few days and that irks me. Thankfully, the client didn’t seem to be bothered by it. But it’s still not a good practice to get into.?

So, I went down the rabbit hole of figuring out why this happened so it doesn’t ever happen again. And I found the reason.?

Grammarly.?

Yes, the writing tool so many of us love was decimating my production and I didn’t realize it until it was too late. It was messing with my head as I tried to churn out content and often slowed me to a screeching halt.?

The reason is simple. When you write with Grammarly turned on, it underlines what it perceives as a mistake in real-time. And if you’ve used Grammarly for any length of time, you already know there’s no shortage of criticism it’s willing to offer–with some of it even being nonsensical. (Ironically, it wants me to change "nonsensical" to something "less negative.")

What a horrible distraction!

So to test my hypothesis, I turned it off and voilà! It turns out it had made me so self-conscious about making a mistake that I went from struggling to write 200 words to cranking out 1,000 words in a matter of minutes. All because I didn’t have that damned thing buzzing in my head anymore.?

The takeaway from this short but (hopefully) impactful newsletter is to examine everything in your work environment–even the useful stuff–to make sure it’s not causing undue distraction. And hopefully, I’ve saved you some of the strain that often comes from writing.?

Sincerely,?

Sean Ryan