Writing is a business, and increased productivity is as imperative to a writer as it is to any other professional. Aside from writing faster, there are other ways you can pump up your output, and keep more free time to yourself (or just take on additional projects).

1. Mobile Writing Tools

Depending on your lifestyle, you might get some good use out of writing tools you can take on the road with you. This can be simple, such as a (paper) notebook, BlackBerry, or a ‘hipster PDA keychain‘ (pictured above).

The benefits of a tool like a BlackBerry is the fact that you can check your Google Reader on it and use it to keep on top of the latest news and articles. Of course that’s aside from the benefit of being able to write down notes and even edit articles on the road.

2. Increase focus, improve your writing

I came across a neat little program called JDarkRoom. It helps for people who are easily distracted and do better when they just type without having to deal with any pop-ups or email notifications. JDarkRoom makes your screen completely black, and allows you to focus just on your writing without the temptation of checking your email obsessively.

3. Simple Accounting Tools

I recently signed up for BillingBoss, which is a fantastic tool if you routinely send out invoices. You can keep track of your income, outstanding invoices and paid invoices.

You also need to keep track of your spending. Writing related courses, office supplies, or even literature are tax deductible. Instead of dealing with an avalanche of receipts at the end of the year, just open up a separate bank account, and get a separate credit card, for your business expenses. Have financial institutions actually do some work for you by doing your bookkeeping for free. As long as you separate your finances completely, you’ll have painless tax filing, and you will know how much you are actually making.

Seems easy enough right? Well, I had not actually fully mastered this skill yet. It is my new year’s resolution though, so today I went out and opened a new account. For six years I successfully managed my business without strictly separate accounts, but tax time was never a happy time when it comes to making sense of my deductions (I did always obsessively keep track of earnings, so that’s never a problem).

4. Stay posted on Writing Markets

There are tens of thousands of writing markets you can sell your work to around the world. Knowing where to submit your articles, or other writing, if a first step to your next paycheck. Although the Writer’s Market is a fantastic resource (and the online version takes up no real shelf space), there are great free resources that supplement a Writer’s Market subscription as well. One of these is Funds for Writers

What is your favorite writing tool? There are endless things that can be put to good use by writers, and this overview is just a bare-bones beginning to the tools any writer cannot do without, but which has really fueled your productivity?

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