6 steps to streamline your writing process

There’s no secret formula for great writing.

However, there’s plenty you can do to streamline your process and boost your productivity.

Let’s review six strategies that can help you consistently craft coherent content:

Step 1: Define your objective.

Before typing anything, spend at least 10 minutes thinking about the topic you want to cover—and what you hope to accomplish through blogging. Also, consider what you hope your reader gets from the article.

Do you want to amuse, provoke or persuade them, or provide your readers with a thought-provoking takeaway? Are you trying to sell something?

Defining your goal helps frame the task ahead. Crystallizing your objective helps you avoid getting halfway through the article and thinking, “Is anybody going to care about this?”

Step 2: Create the article outline.

Once you’ve selected a topic and defined your specific objective, start jotting down headline ideas and writing quick bullet points of key ideas you want to cover.

Creating an outline helps structure your content—and it’s an easy way to get ideas flowing quickly. Don’t worry about clean copy or complete thoughts at this point.

When creating an article outline, I usually go through the following steps: