Increase your blogging productivity with these 5 tools

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Dec 11, 2015 / by
Increase your blogging productivity with these 5 tools

In a recent article, we discussed some of the methods you can employ to expedite your blog writing. Now we explore how to increase your blogging productivity with these 5 tools.


By reading first and editing after, killing all distractions, experimenting with the order in which you write your posts and setting designated time periods for writing, you will notice a dramatic improvement in the time it takes you to write your content.

The only downside to this is that there is a lot of willpower required in order to follow through and execute correctly! Fortunately, there are a number of tools available which will help you to stay productive (and away from Facebook), allowing you to create high quality content quickly and efficiently.

1 – Ommwriter

While most people are perfectly content with word processing applications such as Microsoft Word, Ommwriter offers a tranquil, fully immersive alternative. To describe a word processor as ‘Zen-like’ would seem incongruent, but this description is entirely appropriate for Ommwriter. The application is geared around productivity and only opens in fullscreen. It has relaxing, customisable backgrounds and ambient sounds to help you to defeat writer’s block and get into the zone. The application also features soft keystroke sounds akin to a traditional typewriter which add to the immersive experience. Highly recommended!

2 – Write or Die

The peace and tranquility offered by Ommwriter isn’t for all personalities, and for those who need some more high-octane motivation, Write or Die does the job perfectly. Novelist David Nicholls describes using the program in unflattering terms: “It was as if I was writing with a gun to my head”.

However, for those who thrive on negative motivation, the consequences of words being deleted from your page (or even worse, spiders crawling around on your screen) is just what is needed in order to finish a blog post with haste. While there are an array of negative consequences you can choose for not finishing a piece on time, there are also rewards too. Whether you prefer the carrot or stick approach, Write or Die should be able to help you!

3 – StayFocusd

Stay focussed helps you stop getting distracted by social media...

Stay focussed helps you stop getting distracted by social media…

Aside from being a brilliant marketing tool, it’s no secret that social media is the biggest productivity killer ever created in human history.  If you regularly sit down to write a serious article only to wind up browsing your friend’s holiday pictures, watching cat videos or playing Candy Crush Saga a few minutes later, StayFocusd might be the app for you. StayFocusd can be installed in your browser and limits the amount of time you spend on certain sites. After the time has been allocated you are no longer able to access that site for the rest of the day. This app is certainly not revolutionary but it is very effective at improving productivity.

4 – Evernote

Evernote is the best tool out there for recording your ideas, and since it works with any device, you can record your thoughts at any time, any place. Evernote is particularly useful for capturing blog post ideas, but some bloggers (such as Michael Hyatt) even use Evernote to write the actual posts. This can be useful because Evernote has the option to create custom templates, so if you have a particular style of writing which works for you, creating an outline using Evernote is very easy to do.

Writer Nick Thacker states:

“Evernote isn’t the only solution for blog management, but I find it absolutely wonderful. It’s dead-simple to use, and includes a wide array of helpful tips and tricks to keep you productive.”

5 – Rhymezone

While the name of this tool indicates that it would be extremely useful for writing hip hop lyrics (which I’m sure it would be), Rhymezone has a host of other options which can give you an abundance of antonyms, synonyms, related words and homophones based on your input terms. The variety of options makes Rhymezone much more useful than a traditional online thesaurus and is invaluable during the editing phase when your original choices of words just aren’t conveying the message in the way that you would have liked. Great for aspiring rappers and/or vocabulary nerds!

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