How to Minimize Research Time as a Freelance Writer

As you work as a freelance writer, there are many tasks that will take time away from actually writing the articles that will get you paid. These many tasks need to be done so that you are successful as a freelance writer, but need to be done in the most effective way. One such task that every freelance writer needs to do is research. Research time can be very time consuming and eat up an entire day of freelance writing work if you let it. Take these steps to minimize research time and become more productive as a freelance writer.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Make a list the night before of all of the research that you will need to do during the following day. You will want to make sure that you list any and all research that needs to be done so that you can write the articles that need to be done that day. Organizing your day and knowing what needs to be done are some of the most important tools at your disposal to be a successful freelance writer.

2. Do all of your research at one time, instead of researching each article as you write it. This will make your time much more productive as a freelance writer. You should give yourself one to two hours of research time, depending on your writing workload. This way you will be able to focus on your research and get it done faster. When you are trying to write and research at the same time, it will take twice as long to get both tasks done. Time is money when you are a freelance writer.

3. Lump together articles on the same topic to be researched and written on the same day. You can save time as a freelance writer if you can use one set of research to write 10 articles, as opposed to having to research ten different times to write the same articles. This is the trick that successful freelance writers use to write more articles in one day's time.

4. Save your research in a file on your computer for reference later on. There will be times when you will need to write articles on topics that you have researched in the past. This will happen many times to you as a freelance writer. With the research that you did previously saved for you, you will be able to get to writing the article that much faster.

Resources

• Freelance Writing 101

[tundranut]

on 3/5/2009 Great tips! Thanks! 5*

[rewrite810]

on 3/5/2009 Great ways to maximize research time. Thanks!

[veryirie]

on 3/5/2009 Excellent tips for researching; thanks!