How I'm tracking my writing in 2021 | New writing tracker!

[@JPWrites]

How do you track your writing progress? Are there tools and tricks you use to boost your productivity as a writer?

[@jennys3919]

This was a well timed video for me. I just made a writing tracker this week and it was really interesting to compare what you had on yours. This week I read the book 5000 Words Per Hour and followed through all the exercises which included a template for setting up a word tracker. I highly recommend reading this book. You can get a free copy on the author Chris Fox's website. One of the important things he suggests is recording your words per hour (WPH) and doing solid writing sprints without distraction so the WPH are really accurate. This gives you a baseline to see improvement. Since I started doing this, my word count increased so much in just a few days from making the changes he suggested. Instead of doing one row for each day, I'm doing a row for each word sprint I do. Either 25mins or an hour. Then have a column to convert to WPH. Then I can compare in those time blocks which ones were most productive and see if my WPH rate changes with different times of day, or if they get faster, or slower over a longer writing session. I'm looking forward to having lots of statistics to compare in a few weeks! Thanks for sharing :)

[@JPWrites]

Hi Jenny, I haven't read 5000 Words Per Hour yet, but it's on my list! I like the idea of having a row for each sprint - it'll be interesting to see how/if your productivity changes depending on the time of the day and the length of your sessions. For me, I think the most challenging thing is figuring out a way to track the stuff that isn't purely writing - the thinking, outlining and brainstorming time. I've had a few brainstorming/outlining sessions this week that have been very valuable, but because they don't translate into words, they're hard to measure.

[@essauthor]

I'm working on making a tracker for my writing this year. I found your plans very helpful for making decisions on what I might want on my tracker.

[@JPWrites]

I'm glad it helped!

[@NicoleWilbur]

I love your tracker!! I DON’T really track right now and I think it’s something I should start doing in the near future!!

[@JPWrites]

Now I just need to see how much I actually use it!