Anyone who has been involved in a goal setting exercise should be familiar with the SMART acronym. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely and has been used for decades to ensure set goals can be met. But did you know you can use the same principle when you think about your writing?

Here is a translation of the SMART principle for writers to help you to think about your writing and generate ideas in a structured way. You can even use the principle to critique and edit your own work.

SPECIFIC

Most writers understand that concise writing is easier to read, comprehend and enjoy for the reader. However, specific writing can mean so much more than simply being concise.  When looking at your writing, or considering idea generation, think in terms of the specific audience who will be reading it.

Consider whether the topic is specifically described, or is it too vague. Is your title titillating to your projected audience? What is your specific purpose in writing? Thinking about these things before you begin writing will enable you to be structured in your approach, and concise in your use of words.

Once you have written the first draft, consider whether it really does meet the needs of the specific audience you have in mind and whether you met your purpose in the writing.

MEASURABLE

The word count is the common measurable aspect to writing. Writing to a specific word count for your clients ensures your writing meets their needs and can help you to ensure your writing is concise when you are critiquing your work. A word count gives you a structure to apply to your writing by limiting the number of ideas you can string together in one lump.

The 80-20 rule is a great principle to employ when critiquing your writing. Generally, about 20 per cent of the words can be deleted to make writing concise. Once you have written your first draft, read over it with the idea of cutting about 20 per cent of the superfluous words.

ACHIEVABLE

When you set yourself targets of any kind, they should be achievable; otherwise you will feel like a failure. Make sure that your writing goals are achievable too. Overestimating the amount of work you can do in one day will lead to rushed writing and added stress if you suffer a mental block on the day. Go for quality rather than quantity and give yourself achievable projects that allow for editing and review time too.

REALISTIC

Even the best fantasy writers, creative poets and writers of fiction know that their stories, characters and poems have to be in some measure believable to their audience. Writing should be realistic.

You should also be realistic when assessing your degree of current knowledge about the topic, and factor in appropriate levels of research when it is needed. Good writers write what they know, and are realistic enough to know when detailed research is required before they can comfortably write about a topic.

TIMELY

Sometimes in goal setting, this part of the SMART principle is called Time-Framed. Either way, it can be successfully adapted to meet the needs of the writer. When thinking about the writing process, consider if the work you are doing is timely. Is this the right time to find an appropriate market fot your work. Writing about what to buy for Christmas is not likely to sell in January, for instance. Historical novelists should cross-check their work for all references to time to ensure they are appropriate, especially when talking about products that were not available yet in the time period you are writing about.

Meeting deadlines is another way to ensure your work is time-framed. Giving yourself mini-deadlines can be motivating as a writer and can encourage you to move from thinking to the action of writing.

If you apply the SMART principle to your writing, you will be able to effectively structure and critique your own work and improve your success rate in the market place.

This is the last article under T=Thinking Skills and I hope you have been enjoying them and finding even a kernal or two to help you stay creative.  Next time I’ll be exploring I=Inspiration, (the first ‘I’ in CREATIVE HABITAS). Where do we get our inspiration from, why does it inspire us, how do we stay inspired? Just a few questions I hope I can shed some light on. Until then, stay creative and write well!

There are many different techniques you can use to get your mind working and spark the creativity fire. Successful writers will try different techniques at different times to generate ideas for their writing. Here are a few techniques you can try to generate your ideas to write about.

Brainstorming

Meaning literally to create a storm in your brain by generating ideas quickly one after the other, this technique means you need to generate your ideas and then assess the ideas to see if you have come up with any good ones. You can use a couple of techniques to brainstorm individually.

One is to write down the topic and then spend five to ten minutes listing every single associated idea with that topic. Some ideas will be thrown away and others will be modified or used. The main concept of brainstorming is to generate as many ideas as possible in a short space of time.

I like to spend a few minutes at the start of each work day when my mind is likely to be fresh. Creative ideas then tend to flow, with me just typing in title ideas onto a list. This list then jogs my memory of great ideas to write about whenever I need a new topic. It’s also a fantastic exercise to get your mind thinking about writing, before you get started for the day.

Mindmapping

Mindmapping uses key terms and phrases and links them in a graphic way. If you tend to be a visual learner, you will find this technique extremely useful because you end up with a picture at the end of it. To successfully create a mindmap, you start with a clear piece of paper. YES – get away from the computer screen!

Draw a bubble, circle or box in the middle of the page and write your topic in it. Then draw several lines out from the bubble and create several smaller bubbles at the end of each line. In each secondary bubble, place a key term or phrase that relates to the topic.  Then under each secondary bubble, write as many ideas as you can that relate to that key phrase.

Once you have completed the process for each secondary bubble, you can then get out some colored pens and draw interconnecting lines to ideas that relate to each other. This can be used to give you a structure for your writing on that topic, and can help you divide your ideas into sections, chapters or articles that go together.

Using a mindmap can not only generate ideas, but helps you link them together so that the structure of your writing flows smoothly from one idea to the next. There is also some great free mindmapping software out there like Freemind which has versions for both Mac and PC users.

Reframing

This is a great technique to use when you are particularly stuck for ideas on a topic requested by a client. Most freelance writers end up writing some articles and works that are not within their comfort zone and familiar ways of thinking. Using the reframing technique can encourage you to generate ideas by reframing the question or topic you need to write about and by helping you to see the topic from different perspectives.

• You can create a simple grid, with a question or topic box in the middle of the page and four boxes around it
• Then think of four people who might be related to the topic and would have a different perspective on it. If you are writing about the health system, for example, you might consider the perspectives of the patients, the doctors, the nurses and health insurance funds (or those who pay for the services). All of these people would have a different perspective on the issues and problems relating to the health system
• Then you can make a list of what each group of people’s concerns are most likely to be

Using the reframing technique can help you to generate many ideas on what to write about on that particular topic. You may like to write an article for different audiences, using each perspective as a starting point.

These three techniques are useful for thinking about and generating ideas on specific topics, or even to generate ideas on different topics or stories to write about. Giving yourself time to think clearly and creatively about idea generation can also help you to think about the structure of your writing and how ideas will be linked in your work. And this can only make you a better writer!

T = Thinking Skills

We are now up to T=Thinking skills habit in the CREATIVE HABITS series (the first ‘T’ that is). I look forward to your thoughts (no pun intended..) over the next few weeks as I write about this habit.

Everyone is different and will have preferred ways of learning, writing and being creative in their work. Understanding how your mind works, and your personal preferences will help you to write more creatively and will enable you to actively critique your work.

Luckily, there are several techniques and free tools you can access to learn more about how you personally think and learn. You can then use this knowledge to ensure your creative edge is available when you write, and to critique your work and improve it.

Editing your own writing is often difficult, because you see what you expect to see, not what is there. However, if you know how your brain tends to work, you can use a different technique to critique and edit your own work.

Tools you can use to discover the ways in which you prefer to think, create, learn and work include the Belbin Teamwork Roles, The Myers-Briggs Type Indicators and the DISC method.

These are all tools you can use, and usually access for free on the web, to embark on a tour of self-discovery and knowledge. It has been said that knowledge is power, and knowing yourself better can really help you in your writing and creativity.

Over the years I’ve done all these tests, usually as part of team building exercises and I must admit I prefer the DISC. Especially the Extended DISC (which I’m certified in) as it made sense to me and I could easily understand my personal preferences and more easily identify those of my work colleagues and friends.

DISC is an acronym for

• Dominance (relating to control power and assertiveness)
• Influence (relating to social situations and communication styles)
• Steadiness (relating to patience, persistence and thoughtfulness) and
• Conscientiousness (relating to structure and organization)

People who have a high score in the dominance area are likely to be active in dealing with problems or challenges and those with a low D score will want to do more research before committing themselves. If you find you tend to spend too many hours on research before starting to write, you may have a low D score in this sort of personal preferences test.

People with High I scores can be enthusiastic, persuasive, warm and convincing and this will come across in their style of writing. People with low I scores are more likely to be reflective, with a focus on facts and be logical, critical and matter of fact in their writing style.

People with a High S style will like steady pace and will work consistently but those with low S scores are likely to be restless, impulsive and wait for the creative burst of genius. Understanding your Steadiness score or style will have an impact on your time management and working when you are more creative.

Finally, people with a high rating in the C style section prefer quality work with structure and rules, getting it right the first time. Their first draft may take longer than others, but there will be far less to correct for the final version. People with a low rating in the C style section can be opinionated, unsystematic and careless with details naturally, so learning to double-check the details is a good self-critique for this style of writer.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicators are a similar tool, where you answer questions and decide where you sit in the four groups of personality types.

The Belbin tests are ones that help you to discover how you work in teams, but can also give you important information about how you might work individually. Belbin has devised nine categories of styles of workers; plant, resource investigator, coordinator, shaper, monitor evaluator, teamworker, implementer, complete finisher and specialist.

If you are interested in looking into these types of tools further Business Balls is a great site full of interesting and fun topics – just search for ‘personality types’, there is lots of information and free tools.