500 words a day is the minimum effective daily word count if you want to be a serious writer.
It’s low enough that you can hit it and quit it on days when you’re not feeling it.
And it’s the perfect amount to grease the gears on the days you’re feeling like Stephen King (2,000 words a day) or those rare occasions you’ve eaten whatever Michael Crichton had for breakfast (10,000 words a day).
But…
If you’re not used to writing ANY amount of words per day, 500 words a day is a worthy stretch goal.
So how do you manage to write at least 500 words a day, day in day out, consistently?
How To Write 500 Words a Day
Here’s how I write at least 500 words a day.
These are the practical tools and tips that keep me in the 500-club.
Forest App
The best way to write 500 words a day is to block off time and spend that time JUST WRITING.
This is called Deep Work.
No checking your phone or social media etc.
Just you and your keyboard and pen.
You’re not editing here.
You’re just writing, stream-of-consciousness as fast as you can.
You can clean up later.
If you set a timer for 40 minutes and JUST WRITE during that time, you’ll hit 500 words easy.
Once those 40 minutes are up (or 30, or 45, whatever fits your schedule), enjoy some down time as a reward. Read a book for 5-10 minutes, go on Reddit etc.
This is called the Pomodoro Technique.
There are tons of apps out there that help you work in this way but my favourite is definitely Forest.
The goal is to grow a beautiful forest full of trees. You do that by setting time limits in which you’re not going to look at your phone and just work.
If you’re successful, you’re rewarded with a pretty virtual forest. And if you’re consistent over time, you’ll clock enough points that the developers will donate to the construction of a real forest.
Your productivity is saving the earth, man!
Spar App
Another app.
Probably my favourite app of all time.
This is a social accountability application where you can join challenges and you have to check-in to show proof you’ve done that habit/action.
If you fail to check-in, your wallet takes a hit.
This is called “loss-aversion” and it’s the most powerful way to form a new habit.
Also, if you’re successful you actually win money as the cash taken from the unsuccessful participants goes into a pot and is divided out amongst the people who stuck to the habit.
At the moment I’m in a “write 500 words a day” challenge hosted by Jeff Goins.
The first week, 5 out of 7 days I absolutely DID NOT FEEL LIKE WRITING.
If I wasn’t in the challenge, I 100% would have talked myself out of writing those days.
The social pressure + loss aversion kept me accountable and I ended up clocking some big word counts even on the days I felt the most crappy.
Quora
“What do I write about?”
That’s one of the biggest blocks to consistently writing 500 words a day.
You’ll spend more time thinking about what to write about than actually writing.
If you know exactly what you’re going to write already the hard part’s done and you can plunge in and crank out those 500 words super quickly.
That’s why I’m an advocate of planning when it comes to fiction (as opposed to pantsing, or writing without a plan).
That’s also why non-fiction writing that comes from personal experience is the easiest and quickest to write.
If you are really struggling about what to write and it takes you longer than a few minutes to figure it out, head over to Quora and see what questions people are asking.
There are questions about EVERYTHING.
You will find something you can answer. And there you have the thing you’re going to write for the day. Just use the site like a writing prompt site.
10 Ideas
You can combine Quora with this 10 ideas a day idea I got from James Altucher.
Jame’s Idea Machine post went crazy viral and now there’s a cult of people following suit and writing 10 ideas a day.
Why 10 ideas a day?
James goes into it in his post so I won’t go into detail here, but suffice to say writing 10 ideas a day in a notebook (about anything) is amazing for stimulating your creativity.
I fell out of the habit and only recently picked it back up again, but back when I was consistently writing 10 ideas every day I was my most productive in every area of life – especially writing. Back then I wasn’t writing just 500 words a day. It was at least 2,000 but often much much more.
Spotify
There are a bunch of awesome playlists on Spotify that are perfectly tailored for productivity and writing.
I have a bunch bookmarked that I like (alongside some rain noises occasionally) and I find that simply putting the headphones in, looking at that blank page on my computer, and letting the music wash over me almost immediately gets me into state.
The best way to write 500 words every day consistently is to block out the world around you.
Scrivener
Not a necessity. Everybody has their favourite writing program.
I’ve tried a lot of writing programs, but the one that gets the most work from me consistently is Scrivener.
I love the focus mode where you see nothing on your computer except the paper.
I love the folders so you can keep your projects super organised.
And I just love the feel and intuitiveness of it. It’s great as a publishing tool and for composing big projects, but I also think it’s the best software for composition.
That’s How I Write 500 Words A Day (Minimum)
So there you have it. Those are the hands-on tools I use that get me cranking out 500 words every single day.
Do you have to use these tools to hit a consistent 500 word count every day?
Nope. These are all new tools, maybe not to everyone’s liking, and people have been banging out words long before any of this even existed.
But I know for me that this combination of tools will set me up to write 500 words a day minimum almost always without fail.