January 8, 2018

How to Write When You Don’t Have the Energy

Updated May 2022

Everyone needs the occasional sick day or mental health day. But for most of us, there’s a limit on how much time we can take off before we face career consequences. For writers, that sometimes means having to push through and do difficult, creative work on days where it’s hard.

This is a personal subject for me. For the past few years—predating COVID even—I’ve dealt with health issues that cause chronic fatigue. On top of that, I have many days where my brain is foiled by allergies (a bigger deal in Austin than the word “allergies” communicates to most people). But I run a business based around writing and I’ve had to keep it up on the bad days as well as the good.

Photo by Xavier Sotomayor on Unsplash

Over time, I’ve become used to keeping my work going when my brain and body just want to curl up in bed and avoid anything that requires mental energy. And writing takes a lot of mental energy. Yet, somehow I always meet my deadlines.

For others that struggle with similar issues—or different ones that affect your productivity in similar ways—I’m sharing what’s worked for me in the hopes that it might work for you.

It’s unlikely that every item on this list will be useful for every person reading it. But if you find that even just one thing here makes a difference, then that’s something.

1. Reshape your to-do list based on priority.

Most of us start off each day aiming to do more than we absolutely have to get done. In many contexts, that kind of ambition serves you well and helps you stay productive. But on the bad days, it starts to feel like a burden pressing down on you that makes it harder to get anything on the list done.

When you’re having an off day, an overwhelming to-do list isn’t doing you any favors. Carefully review the list and figure out which items on it can wait. You need the sparse energy you have for the writing that has to get done today. Move that to the top of the list and do it first. After the most important stuff is done, only then do whatever else you can manage. Or go ahead and give yourself the rest of the day off if you need it (and don’t feel guilty about it).

2. Analyze where your energy goes.

I’m a big proponent of focusing on energy management at least as much as time management. When you start paying close attention, you’ll realize that different types of work and activities require different levels of energy from you—and this is something that varies from person to person.

For anyone that regularly deals with low energy levels, knowing how to rework your calendar based on the amount of energy you have available is a crucial skill. But this is worthwhile even for people who don’t struggle with depression or illness. Tracking how your energy levels relate to the work you tackle each day will help you plan your weeks more efficiently. You can minimize tasks that require a disproportionate amount of energy for the value they bring to your work.

For instance, I’m extremely introverted. Adding a networking event to my day uses up a lot of the energy I have for work that day, even on a good day. I know to be strategic about when I plan to attend social events, and when to forego those plans when the energy just isn’t there.

Figure out how the typical tasks you have to deal with in a week compare in this regard so you know which ones to cut down on to conserve the energy you have.

3. Leave wiggle room in your schedule.

If you’re freelance like me, that will mean leaving money on the table, at least in the short term. But when you can’t predict what your days will be like, you have to plan your life in a way that anticipates bad days. And leaving wiggle room in your calendar means you’re much less likely to miss deadlines and disappoint clients, which adds up to more success in the long term.

This isn’t a tip that will help much if you woke up this morning feeling fatigued or depressed for the first time. But if it becomes something that happens regularly, then you have to start planning on it. Worst-case scenario, if you have nothing but good days for a while, that extra wiggle room gives you time to tackle all those tasks you tend to put off till later when you’re busy.

4. Use a social media blocker.

Seriously, it helps. Focusing on work requires energy. Scrolling Twitter doesn’t. The days I’m the most tired are the ones where I find it easiest to scroll for long periods of time without realizing it.

When your brain wants to be focusing on anything but the thing you need to be doing, that’s when social media has the most power. It’s probably not the only distraction in your life you have to grapple with, but it’s one you can do something about.

I use Focus. It costs a small fee, but it’s probably improved my productivity enough to cover its cost several times over. When you’re trying hard to focus and your brain won’t cooperate, getting a message that reminds you of your good intentions each time you try to pull up Facebook can be a helpful reminder to get back on track.

5. Create a ritual for starting work.

When the pandemic sparked a mass shift to remote work, some people were surprised to find that the commute they hated actually served a purpose they hadn’t realized: helping draw a line between their home life and work time. Psychologically, there’s value to having a ritual that delineates when it’s time to switch your brain into “work mode.”

This is a tip I got from Cal Newport’s Deep Work. To provide a tangible signal to my brain that it’s writing time, I put on headphones and pick some music or noise that helps with focus. For some people, that ritual could be taking a walk around the block, or getting your morning cup of coffee ready and settling in at your the desk. The ritual doesn’t have to be anything complicated, just something that creates enough of a routine that you can train your brain to recognize it as a signal to focus.

6. Try listening to music or white noise.

Some writers need absolute silence to focus, but for some of us the right kind of music or noise can help. Personally, I avoid anything with lyrics. But I find some instrumental music like movie and TV scores make for good background noise to write to. Sometimes when I worry even that might be too distracting, I find a white noise video on YouTube or turn to myNoise.

YouTube has tons of videos of pretty images set to music designed to help with focus (and as a side note, the comments on most of these videos are some of the nicest spaces on the web, full of people urging each other to focus—so wholesome). Just do a search for “focus noise” or focus music” and you’ll see lots of results. Give some a try and see if you’re the kind of writer who works better with the right kind of noise in the background.

7. Give exercise breaks a try.

I get it. I understand if you’re looking at the computer screen right now feeling so tired or overwhelmed or beat down by life that this is the last piece of advice you want to hear.

Taking time out of your day for exercise feels counterintuitive when you have so much to do and not enough energy to do it. But I’ve found that it sometimes kick-starts my brain and gives me a couple of hours of productivity afterward. It might not do the same for you, but it’s worth a try.

A Big Caveat: With some of the illnesses that cause chronic pain and/or fatigue, exercise can make symptoms worse. So pay attention to your own body here. Don’t keep doing something you think should be working, even if it doesn’t help in your case.

8. Watch what you eat.

I am not talking about restrictive dieting or weight loss here (not really a fan of those things!). I mean paying attention to insensitivities or ingredients that regularly make you drowsy or distracted. I know having a carb-heavy lunch brings my productivity down in the afternoon, for example. So I save the pasta dishes for dinner.

How people react to food varies, so saving carbs for dinnertime might not make a lick of difference to you. But do some experimenting with cutting certain ingredients out for a period of time to see if you notice a difference. Or start making notes of how you feel throughout the day and what you ate so you can see if there’s a relationship.

Changing your diet won’t make something like a thyroid problem or depression disappear entirely, but cutting out something that makes you feel a little bit worse will help you feel a little bit better. When you’re starting from a place of feeling crummy, that little bit of difference can help.

9. Try supplements or herbal teas.

Look, for all I know it may be the placebo affect, but I’ve found this tea helps when I’m really struggling to focus. And making tea out of fresh ginger (I add in some mint and lemon or lime) seems to help with headaches or allergy-induced brain fog. Ginseng or gingko supplements might work for some people. B-12 or vitamin D supplements may work for others. If you can afford it, ask your doctor to run some tests to see if you’re low on any supplements that are good for energy and brain health.

10. Be forgiving with yourself.

The inspirational stuff you see on social media and in productivity articles aimed at people that don’t have illnesses/depression/whatever you’re dealing with right now may be good for those other people, but they can make those of us struggling to finish the bare minimum feel rotten.

Know that it’s OK not to hold yourself to someone else’s standard when you’re having a bad day (or week, or month).

Feeling stressed out and hopeless won’t help you get things done. Do the best you can, and don’t beat yourself up if what you accomplished today is less than you’d hoped.

I’m not a doctor or medical expert, so if you’re dealing with something that you think may benefit from talking to someone who is, don’t let this post be a substitute. If you have a problem that requires medical treatment, nothing else you try will work as well. But having a few extra tricks in your bag to help out when things are hard doesn’t hurt. I hope these can help you get through the writing that has to get done today and that your tomorrow is better.

October 22, 2013

5 Key Takeaways for Freelancers from Content Marketing World 2013

The whole concept of content marketing is changing how businesses value and approach many of the skills we freelancers most excel at. While the Content Marketing World conference is definitely not put together with freelancers top of mind, it provides a good glimpse into what our clients and potential clients are thinking about, the directions they’re moving in and the best ways we can provide the value they’re seeking.

As a freelance writer, the tips I’ve shared below definitely lean towards lessons useful for freelance writers specifically, but many of these can be easily applied to freelancers working in any capacity related to content marketing. The growing importance of images and videos was a hot topic, and the need for well-designed websites has always been a crucial issue in content marketing.

Without further ado, here are 5 key takeaways for freelancers from this year’s Content Marketing World:

1) Marketers consider creating enough good content a big problem.

In advance of the conference, the Content Marketing Institute performed a survey to get a clear idea of what marketers are doing, and what tactics are working for them. 55% of those surveyed ranked producing enough content as one of the largest challenges they face.

Couple that number with the 58% planning to increase their content marketing budget over the next year and we’ve got some ripe conditions for quality freelancers to help fill in the gaps businesses are experiencing.

An important distinction here is that word “good” – marketers are bringing increasingly high standards to what constitutes content worth publishing. As the web becomes ever more saturated with content, we have to be able to bring our A-game to the clients we work with to help them develop the kind of content that helps a business stand apart from the crowd.

2) Content strategy is key for effectiveness.

This was another takeaway from the survey. The businesses that jump into content marketing without a plan get less out of it than those that develop a strategy.

While freelancers are often just one part of the larger content strategy for businesses, this is an important piece of information for us to impress upon any clients that aren’t thinking strategically. If we help them develop awesome content, but it’s not used effectively, we’re not really helping. Not to mention, we risk becoming a line item easy to cut out of their budget if our work doesn’t help them make money.

If we want to add value (as we should), we must urge clients to approach their content marketing with a bigger picture in mind.

3) Help out non-customers, even if you don’t see a direct benefit.

This point was emphasized again and again in different talks and sessions at the conference. Jay Baer, whose talk was one of the most popular there, urged the audience to “make marketing so useful, people would pay for it.”

Obviously, if you’re doing freelance work for pay, you’re already thinking that way 🙂

One of his other really meaningful points was to always think about how to help people in your audience, even if they’re not your customer. Good content marketing means thinking about offering value first, and making sales later.

Hilton created a Twitter account devoted to proactively giving travelers advice on different cities they visit – even people staying at other hotels. Lowe’s shares useful tips via Vine for people interested in home repair and gardening – including one that shows people how to make their own watering can (a tool Lowe’s sells).

Is it crazy to help your competitors’ customers, or tell people how to make the products you sell? Nope. It’s just good marketing.

4) Many businesses are looking for content that’s as good as journalism.

Bill Haggin and Nancy Pardo talked about their successful strategy running a blog for PTC. They made the recommendation to a crowded room of marketers to hire journalists for their blogs. This means:

a) Businesses are placing a value on blogging at a higher level than ever, and

b) They’re willing to pay good writers for journalism-level work.

This doesn’t just apply to writing, David Germano talk about treating your marketing like a media company. Andrew Davis compared content marketing to his previous profession creating kids shows. You have to think like the editors and media professionals whose job it is to entertain and educate an audience.

Having content doesn’t make businesses more competitive, having content that’s more helpful and informative does. We need to be thinking at that level in the work we provide clients.

5) Have personality!

Andrew Davis gave an example of a woman who built a massive following and successful makeup brand out of making short videos that had personality. Lauren Luke’s brief makeup tutorials on YouTube became massively popular. She didn’t spend any money on the videos, just brought a little time and personality to them.

You want people to care about and relate to your brand, which is harder for them to do if it feels like an entity without actual people behind it. Don’t be afraid of humor. Don’t be afraid of using a tone that’s more personal than professional.

If clients tend towards dry industry speak and buzzwords, try to steer them back around to the kind of language their customers actually speak. And don’t ever think any subject’s too dry or dull for some humor, Tim Washer shared some examples of companies that made dull subjects humorous. Who knew router hardware could be so fun?

As a final note, it’s worth mentioning that I came across many people who exclaimed “we really need more good writers!” or some variation of that phrase. While I hear many freelance writers concerned about finding good clients, those good clients are out there trying to figure out how to find us too.

March 18, 2013

On Writing and Getting Paid

There’s been a lot of conversation online recently about the typical practices surrounding how for-profit publications pay writers, or whether they do at all. Prompted by the correspondence Nate Thayer published between him and an Atlantic editor, after he was asked to let them publish his work for free, many writers and editors have spoken up to weigh in on the subject, including Ta-Nehisi Coates over at the Atlantic, and a large group of writers and editors at the Awl.

As a freelance writer, I’ve followed the conversation with fascination. Sometimes to the slight detriment of my own productivity (did you see the length of that Awl discussion?). It’s not a new discussion, but as with many heated topics, all that was required was the catalyst of one angry writer making a stink, and many others followed to weigh in with their opinion.

So, because I’m sure the internet is clamoring for one more voice on the subject, here’s mine.

Whether or not writers should be paid for their work depends on the intent of the work.

Work

Obviously I need to get paid for my time and work, or I can’t make a living and would need to go back to working for someone else. I very much prefer freelance work to the alternative, so this is an important consideration. If I’m writing for a business or a for-profit publication, there shouldn’t be a question of payment. The content provided is valuable and serves a profitable purpose.

Almost any work I do that will help to promote another company or publication, I expect to get paid for.

Marketing

Here’s where the almost comes in: in order to be successful as a freelance writer, marketing myself plays an important role in the equation. Many freelance writers produce content for self-promotion for free, whether that content is published on a personal blog, their own website, or as a guest post or article in an industry publication that will bring it to a larger audience.

This is the tricky line of exposure. How do you measure whether the publication of your work is doing more to promote the publication in question (in which case you should be paid) and when it does more to promote your own brand (in which case it serves as marketing and might be worth doing for free, or a lower rate than usual).

Love

There’s an amazing series on the Hairpin called Scandals of Classic Hollywood. As I understand it, these stories, which are often lengthy and always include a number of photographs that surely take some time to gather, are written for free. They are also wildly popular on the site.

Why would someone put that much time into something without the promise of a profit? It’s clear that the writer, Anne Helen Peterson, loves the subject matter she writers about. It’s worth noting, she also recently published a book on the subject that many of her Hairpin readers rushed to buy, but my hunch is that she didn’t start the series a couple of years ago as a long-term marketing project for a book that hadn’t been written yet (although if she did, that’s brilliant marketing).

If a writer chooses to do some writing to help a non-profit she cares about with fundraising, or to raise awareness of an issue that’s of special importance to her, or for the fun of analyzing a good tv show – then there’s a drive to do the work that has little to do with profit.

So, that’s it. If you ask a professional writer to write for free, unless doing so achieves them a specific marketing goal, or it’s a piece about something they love and would likely write about anyways, don’t be surprised if you get an offended response like Thayer’s.

Unless you’re quick to offer whatever you do for a living for free to any asker, you should be sympathetic to their position.

February 18, 2013

Content Marketing in 2013

That content marketing is a growing force is no surprise to anyone who follows trends in marketing. Blog posts and articles citing the benefits quality content has on branding, SEO and customer loyalty abound.

Nonetheless, it’s nice to be able to match some numbers to all the talk. Business Bolts performed a survey of 265 individuals, a mix of small business owners and marketing professionals, in order to gain a sense of how businesses are approaching content marketing in 2013.

You can find the full report on their findings here.

Most of the results aren’t especially surprising, but serve to back up arguments copywriters, marketers and SEO professionals have been making for some time:

Content marketing is good for SEO

77% of respondents said content marketing helped increase web traffic, and 71% said it helped them achieve higher rankings

Content marketing is good for ROI

Although there are challenges in many cases to tracking the relationship between content marketing and sales, 59% said they believed that content marketing helped them up their sales numbers.

Content marketing strengthens brand awareness

70% reported this benefit, another that’s hard to track, but crucial for small business success.

The good news for freelance writers and content developers: many respondents expressed a desire to find good content producers.

The bad news: few have made content production a high budget item. Most (61%) reported still doing the majority of their content development in house, but of those that worked with freelancers the amount they’re paying is piddling. 14% spend less than $15 for 1,000 words, and 17% spend between $16 and $25.

It’s clear that businesses have a growing awareness of the benefit good content provides. Hopefully, their willingness to value those helping them reap that benefit will increase in time as well.

Austin Copywriter

Austin Copywriting & Content Marketing

Tag Archives: freelance writing