5 Blogging Tools That Virtual Assistants Would Love
Writing can be hard to do when you’re working from home. It’s easy to get distracted by things like noise coming from the outside or the temptation to check your Facebook or Twitter timeline. Other times, someone suddenly knocks on your door, and you have no choice but to stop and check who it is. The flow of ideas is paused, and before you know it, you’ve completely lost your concentration.
Getting back into the groove can be a problem. In times like this or when you feel like you aren’t at your best (because, admit it, there are days when it’s just extra hard to get some writing done), try any of these apps to keep you on track.
Any.do
Having an overview of all the things you need to accomplish within the day or week will give you a better idea on how much time to allot for each task. Any.do lets you create reminders and to-do lists — whether for work or personal errands — and you can set up alarms to ensure that you won’t forget. You can also categorise your tasks and lists; this way, you can avoid getting things mixed up.
You might want to try putting up a list of topics that you plan to blog about and creating a schedule on when you’re going to do each of them. This way, you can go straight to writing on any given day and not waste time thinking about what to write.
Tomighty
Tomighty is a desktop timer that uses the Pomodoro Technique, which was developed by Francesco Cirillo. The idea is to set the timer for 25 minutes, and for 25 minutes, you have to work non-stop. Once the 25 minutes has ended, you can take a three to five-minute break to rest a bit and refresh your mind. After this short break, you have to go back to work mode for another 25 minutes, then take another short break, and so on and so forth.
Calmly Writer
If you want a clean, no-distractions page where you can type your article, you might want to give Calmly Writer a go. It’s very plain — its interface doesn’t have the formatting options that you can find on Microsoft Word or Google Docs. It also has a “focus mode”, which blurs out paragraphs you’ve previously written so that you can focus on the paragraph you’re currently working on.
Coffitivity
Some writers feel more at ease hearing the buzz of people than being in a very quiet place. If you’re this type of writer and you tend to focus better when you hear the gentle chatter of other people, you’ll certainly love Coffitivity. This app has a library of ambient sounds of a cafe, which can help boost your concentration and creativity.
Hemingway App
Hemingway App is basically an editing tool that lets you simplify your sentences and remove unnecessary words. All you have to do is copy-paste your article onto the app, and it will tell you how many sentences are too long or hard to read or if you’re excessively using adverbs or the passive voice.
These are just some of the amazing apps that can help you be more productive. There are surely lots more out there waiting to be discovered. Of course, not all of these might work for you since each writer has his own preferred methods. As the saying goes, to each his own!
Next: Top 5 Project Management Tools For Virtual Assistants
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