The Ultimate, Low-Stress, Fast-and-Effective Writing Diet

Poor writing habits are like a poor diet — they make you sluggish and stressed and cause you to perform well below your potential. The best nourishment for your writing is the following blend.

Create a hospitable writing environment

Not everyone can have a sunny spot overlooking the sea, but try to make your writing environment as clean, quiet, and relaxing as possible. If you work at home, a private room will do. Tack a sign on the door to alert your family that you are writing and are not be to interrupted except in real emergencies — not for sibling spats.

If you are working in an office building, make sure the space around your computer is as clear and relaxing as possible. You may want to have a picture of your family or another favorite photo nearby. Be sure your chair is comfortable and your computer screen set at an appropriate angle.

When possible, write at the same time, in the same place

For many in the business community, where crises flare with every phone call, a consistent writing schedule may be impossible. However, if you have a home office or unusual control over your time, you can build a regular writing time into your day. Most businesspeople write in the late afternoon when they know how many follow-up letters, informational packets, and other documents they must send out. Or, you may prefer the advantages of early morning: your mind is fresh, thoughts clear, and you’re relatively undistracted. Choose what works best for you.

In addition to cutting stress, regular writing times condition your mind to flick into writing mode in the same way that your body grows hungry, sleepy, or tired at the same time every day. They also enable you to complete your writing projects and have greater control over your deadlines.
Don’t sit for more than an hour or two at a time

Our bodies are conditioned for many things, but sitting at a computer for long stretches is not one of them. The problems — from bad backs to carpal tunnel syndrome to headaches — have made the headlines of every health magazine in the country. Prolonged sitting also makes you restless, tired, and distracted, which weakens your writing style. The best sitting schedules: one or two hours at a stretch with an hour or two break, or three or four hours with several short breaks in between.

Write in a quiet environment

For most businesspeople — whose offices practically vibrate with ringing phones and conversations — the notion of working in a quiet environment is laughable. But noise is no more generic than the characters in a Western — some are safe and protective, while others are sinister, even deadly.

Safe noise. White noise is as safe as a lullaby. Safer. After all, white noise, including the blur of distant conversations, phones that you don’t have to answer, and faxes, copiers, and printers, has a harmless, rhythmic beat. White noise blends with the environment into a simple, subtle hush.

Unsafe noise

Conversations. The most common source of unsafe noise is nearby conversation. Whether the conversation centers on the company’s new pension plan or a tennis match over the weekend, the moment you start following the trail of discussion, your brain moves away from your writing.

Children. If you work in a home office, children may be another source of unsafe noise. Here’s a typical scenario: You’re working on an important letter to a prospective client and hear a shrill scream from the living room. You assume your children are just wrestling on the carpet or fighting over a toy. Still, what if one of them fell, cut a finger, banged a head? Even if your spouse or baby-sitter is watching them, you pause and must grope to retrieve those snatches of thought that were heading for the page moments before the interruption.

Music. The most subliminal form of unsafe noise comes from the radio. Surprisingly, people have a flurry of excuses for listening to music when they write, including: “It relaxes me so I can think better,” “It puts me in a better mood,” and “It creates a nicer environment for writing.” The gold medal goes to this line, though: I don’t hear it, so why should I shut it off?” The response: if you don’t hear it, why keep it on in the first place?

The truth is, of course, that you do hear the music and it does affect your writing. When you write, you create a rhythm with your words and sentence structure, which emphasizes important points, enlivens the writing style, and makes the information more appealing for the reader. In a sense, sentence rhythm provides background music for your message.When you listen to the radio, the music deadens your rhythm and causes you to create uniform sentences. The shift between the music and a disc jockeys’ announcements also creates distractions that break that valuable flow of thought.

How do you find necessary quiet? If you have a home office, your best course is to plan your writing time around household or street activities. One of my clients lives in an apartment building loaded with college students. As everyone knows, students love music — usually loud music with plenty of bass. At first, my client called his neighbors and reminded them that they shared the building with hard-working elders. The moment that music lowered, though, someone else’s music cranked up. Then my client remembered a second well-known fact about students: they love to sleep late. My client’s solution was to do his writing in the morning and schedule his meetings at his clients’ sites for later in the day. If you have children, you should plan to write when they’re at school or day care.If you work in an unusually noisy office, ask your boss to set up a writing room with a computer and comfortable chair where you and your coworkers can write. Some companies let employees leave work an hour or two early to work on an important proposal or manual in the quiet of home. Other companies are amenable to letting employees come in an hour early when the office is quiet to complete a project, then leave an hour early at the end of the day. If you must stay at your desk, put a Do Not Disturb sign on your cubi0cle and let voice mail answer the phone.

Try This! Wrestling With Distraction…and Winning. Create a list of the most common distractions you encounter when writing. Then fold the paper in half lengthwise and write a separate list of solutions. Keep the paper in a desk drawer or folder. Return to it in a week or two. If your solution didn’t work, find another.

TRY THIS! Cleaning Home and Office. Look at your writing space and find ways to make improvements. For example, is the space around your computer cluttered with papers? If so, find another place to put them. Is the window closed or dirty? Find ways to let sunlight in for a more relaxing view.