Tuesday’s writing tip

Experienced authors recognize that constant daily progress is the key to writing success. Daily progress is necessary so you can avoid writer’s block, finish your book on time, and have time left to promote and profit from your book. Writing as little as 30 or 45 minutes a day is often enough to keep your brain engaged and your project moving forward.

Daily progress is easy when you work with a mind map that displays the work that remains to be done as well as your daily progress.

Published & Profitable members can download a mind mapping table of contents template intended for use with Mindjet’s MindManager. (You can try MindManager for 21 days for free, here.) To display your progress using a mind map, you can:

• Delete topics as you complete them.
• Change text colors as you finish each point.
• Change background fill colors of each point.
• Add a strikethrough effect to indicate completion.

Your choice of specific technique isn’t as important as the idea of displaying your daily progress using a visual content plan, like a mind map. You’ll feel a definite sense of pleasure as you complete each topic and either remove the topic from your mind map, or change its formatting. When you return to your project, you’ll be able to see your progress at a glance–maintaining your motivation and visually rewarding your efforts.