Happy New Year! If you’re like me, you have some writing goals for 2023. Maybe you are looking to improve the quality of your writing, to increase the speed at which you produce polished writing, or to write with greater regularity. Your writing goals may not be related to your work; perhaps you want to join the ranks of people who keep a daily gratitude journal. Whatever your intentions, I’ve provided seven tips below to help you achieve your goals.

1. Create a schedule. Scheduling your writing might be the most important piece of advice in this article. Simply put, what isn’t scheduled typically doesn’t happen. If you want to create a daily habit (such as journaling), then commit to a set time, such as every morning while you drink your coffee or tea. Notice how this new habit is incorporated into an existing one, which can make it easier to keep. For work-related writing, schedule time in your calendar. For instance, I do almost all content creation for clients (e.g., resume writing, ghostwriting) in the morning. I schedule blocks of time for this work. Once you have scheduled your time, don’t neglect the next tip… 

2. Guard your writing time as sacred. Especially if your writing project is not for a client, it can be ridiculously easy to bypass your scheduled writing time for something more urgent. I’ll just take care of these couple of important emails. I need to return the call that I missed. Let me revise this client document before I work on my project. Do these situations sound familiar? If you’re working on a large project, such as a book, website text, or course curriculum, consider blocking several days for a writing retreat. During writing retreats, I produce large volumes of work quickly because I have no other distractions.

3. Determine your pain points. Reflect on what is holding you back. Is it that you schedule time, but don’t know what to write? If so, work on brainstorming your topic ideas in advance. Perhaps you spend time guessing where commas or semicolons should go. If that’s the case, then you need to brush up on your grammar. If you’re struggling to self-identify your pain points, talk to a trusted friend or coach. Having someone actively listening can help you pinpoint your top struggles. After you determine your pain points, tackle them one at a time to improve your writing incrementally. This brings me to my next point… 

4. Be a lifelong learner. Ernest Hemingway wrote that “we are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” What a liberating sentiment—even “expert” writers can still improve! If they can, you certainly can too. Adopt a mindset of lifelong learning. Once you’ve determined your pain points, seek out resources. These resources can be as simple as books on writing, grammar, or time management. 

5. Set the bar low (at first). Novelist Anne Lamott has written about “shitty first drafts.” These are the drafts in which you simply put your thoughts down on paper. When you first draft something, don’t strive for perfection. Strive for completion. Aim to get your ideas documented, and then go from there. Don’t spend precious time poring over every word and comma when those ideas might go on the cutting room floor. Depending on what you’re writing, you might be done! This can be the case if you’re writing something that won’t be made public (e.g., journal or list of blog topics). If what you’re writing is for an outside audience (e.g., blog, client document, book), then you can acknowledge your accomplishment of getting the first draft written and then move on to revising and polishing. 

6. Seek feedback. Feedback can take many forms. For personal writing like a journal, you don’t need to discuss your writing with anyone unless that is your preference. For all other writing, asking for feedback is a critical step. You can develop habits for doing so, such as by informing clients that your process is collaborative and that their feedback is crucial to the project. For blog or book writing, having an editor can be invaluable because that person isn’t close to the project like you are. They will help catch issues of clarity, wordiness, logic, and, of course, grammar. If you choose not to work with an editor, you can identify a writing partner with whom you swap work: they provide feedback on your writing, and you do so on theirs. These types of arrangements can last for years or be project-based.

7. Read your writing out loud to catch errors and awkward phrases. Before you hit “send” or “publish,” make sure you’ve read your writing out loud. This can feel quite tedious, but you will almost certainly notice an awkward phrase, repeated word, or some other type of error.

These tips can both make your writing practice more efficient and the quality of your writing better. But that’s not all. When you adopt strong writing habits, you will also find that you enjoy the process of writing even more. Given that writing is at the core of what we do as career services professionals, improving your writing habits has the potential to enhance your overall happiness at work. Writing will no longer be just one more thing on your to-do list. Rather, it very well might become the most cherished part of your day. 

Wishing you all the best as you embark on 2023!