QDWPIP: A Quick and Dirty Plan for Overcoming Writing Blocks

Making a Writing Productivity Improvement Plan  is an act of commitment to yourself and your writing that will increase the odds that you will make a positive change to your writing habits.

The process of creating your plan involves:

1) remembering and honoring your desire to write

2) deciding what writing project is most important to start with

3) knowing your strengths and challenges, selecting realistic and appropriate steps to take, and

4) developing strategies for reconnecting to writing if you fall off the wagon.

Here is a quick and dirty template adapted from my book, The Blocked Writer’s Book of the Dead for organizing your own personal –

Quick and Dirty Writing Productivity Improvement Plan

(QDWPIP)

1. In a single sentence, explain why it is important for you to write regularly.

2. What writing project(s) would you most like to make progress on?

4. List three primary challenges to your writing productivity.

5. For each challenge identified, generate one idea for addressing some aspect of the problem that you can take action on in the next week.

6. Generate one idea for addressing each of your three primary challenges that you can take action on in the next month.

7) Generate three ideas about what you will do if you realize you’ve stopped writing.

Update and amend the QDWPIP as needed. Post a copy of this where you write, on your refrigerator, and anywhere else it might be helpful to have it. Make a check mark on it and note the date each time you implement a planned solution.

Keep in mind that even though QDWPIP is quick and dirty, it’s as easy to avoid doing such a plan as it is to avoid writing. If you’d like to experiment with a more time consuming and cleaner Writing Productivity Improvement Plan, you can find one in my book.