The workload that your editorial calendar has can be intimidating. At first glance, it may seem impossible to write all of these articles within a short period of time. With all of the meetings and unscheduled tasks that need to be completed at a moment’s notice, the challenge of keeping your momentum as a writer to stay focused on a particular topic can cause even more pressure.
As a copywriter, we are expected to handle it all—effortlessly—to the point where we often make it look easy, which in turn prompts our boss to assign us more work—because we’re so darn efficient!
You might as well acclimate your mindset as a writer to organize your copy in a way where you’ll always have to make room for new content because the immediate reward of doing a good job is more work!
It can oftentimes seem impossible to write a bulk amount of content by a certain date—even if you love to write! So here are some 3 tips to help you manage your copy more efficiently.
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Stay Organized
Above everything else, if you stay organized, you’ll have conquered everything else. Being organized means that you haven’t let a task slip through the cracks. You’re able to give an accurate update on all of your projects without looking like a deer in headlights! In short, you’ll be on top of your responsibilities whether they are on schedule or pushed back.
You simply have to be in the ‘know’ when it comes to handling your business. Not knowing the status of your tasks will result in a downward spiral of a less than standard work ethic and sub-par display of material.
This is what you need to do to prevent such a thing:
- Prioritize your daily and long-term tasks.
At the very least, write down everything that you are responsible for and what you are expected to answer to. Write it on a whiteboard or post-it note. Sometimes just seeing it, will keep it at the top of your priority list—no matter how long it is!
- Prioritize your content.
Some topics will take longer to write than others. Once you get the idea of how long or how quick you can write certain content, implement that into your daily tasks. If you know you’ll have a bunch of meetings one day, plan to write the articles that you can whip out in an hour or so. For those articles that require a certain amount of research, dedicate time for just that and save the writing for another time or day. If you know you have all day to dedicate to writing, this might be the time to schedule the articles that require much more thought and concentration.
Here, it’s all about balance!
Maybe you have a quota to meet and you’re running a little behind. Those longer articles might take a little longer to write, but the amount of money that the article is worth will certainly pay off.
- Outsource
There’s no shame in hiring a freelancer to help you write some of your copy. Depending on how many clients and articles you have to write, you may not have a choice. Just be sure to edit all of your freelancer’s content, because in the end, it is YOUR responsibility as the assigned copywriter to make sure that all of the copy that passes your desk is accurate.
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Be Flexible
Always make room for adjustments. At any given moment, you can be pulled away from a writing assignment to address another issue. Be ready for it. Remember when I mentioned ‘unscheduled tasks’ earlier? This is what I’m talking about.
Oftentimes, these unscheduled tasks require you to drop everything and address it quick, fast, and in a hurry. You might be in the middle of an epic literary rant or crafting that catch phrase that will generate leads for days…if you’re slick enough you might be able to finish it, but ideally, you’ll be expected to deal with urgent priorities.
Here’s some helpful advice for maintaining your train of thought when interrupted from writing your masterpiece of a copy:
- Keep a record of certain copy.
If you’re writing about products, keep a record of these products so that they serve as a reference guide for you instead of spending the time researching the same thing. However, you must be flexible and talented enough to re-write that copy into something new. Whatever you do, don’t copy and paste. Some readers can recognize this. Challenge yourself to find new ways to write the same thing.
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Be Aware
This leads me to the next tip: be aware! Don’t fall into a routine task. This can lead to writing boring copy that’s dry and lifeless. You have to find a way to breathe life into your copy by incorporating some sort of example that is relevant in today’s world, no matter how insignificant it is. The bottom line is that you don’t want your copy to read like a textbook!
Some of what you write will be inspired by your own experience and observations. Just don’t make it too personal. There are literary magazines for that. Here, you need to adopt the journalists’ mentality and keep yourself out of the story—even when you’re writing in the first person! One thing to take note of is that no matter what kind of content you’re writing, you can always incorporate your professional experience into the copy.
This is what you need to do to incorporate some solid experience:
- Research! Read magazines, blog posts, and anything that relates to whatever it is you’re writing about. If you happen to be juggling 40 clients, then you have a lot a reading to do! Even some television shows could serve as good examples provided that it’s relevant to the content. Just use the media!
- Use a dictionary and thesaurus! Some writing tools have proven themselves to be tried and true. These two tools are it! As a copywriter, it is imperative that we expand our vocabulary, especially when we’re tasked with writing the same thing umpteenth different times! Don’t be ashamed to use these tools.
Keeping Your Priorities in Check
As long as you stay organized, prioritize your content, stay flexible enough to take on more writing assignments, and be aware of what’s going on in your community and even the world, you’ll be able to manage and write as much good content as your boss throws at you!
Contact Optimum7 to learn about how to provide exceptional content.
