By Dorothee Racette, Take Back My Day

Publishing authentic content is one of the most important things you can do to set yourself apart, but finding time for writing can be hard when there are so many other matters competing for your attention. Many people wish they had more opportunity to write, not only to promote their business, but also because they have something important to say. Not having a regular writing schedule means that a brilliant idea may be gone when you finally try to put a blog post together. In the absence of your voice, your industry also hears more frequently about other people’s businesses, even though your competitors’ content may be far from earthshaking. Here are some steps you can take to make the practice of writing a greater priority in your day:

1. Explore what is taking up your time.

As with every activity you want to prioritize in your schedule, start by taking a close look at your current daily routine. Where is your time going, and what are some distractions you may be able to cut back on? Other factors to analyze include the hours spent on the phone and online, your typical response to customer inquiries, and the general flow of your business activities. For example, if you tend to drop everything when a client calls, it can be difficult to schedule other activities. In some cases, business activities seem to concentrate at certain times of the day. Also think about how you typically handle other scheduled commitments such as meetings and deadlines in your calendar.

2. Identify a relatively quiet time to set aside.

If an hour of daily writing time seems overly ambitious, start by blocking out intervals of 15 to 20 minutes. Because new habits usually stick better when they are repeated with predictability, try to pick a time that tends to be quieter, such as early morning or the end of lunch hour, and choose a place where you can consistently do your writing. If being at your desk will make it difficult to avoid distractions, consider writing in a different room. Block your writing time in your calendar and don’t allow other people or activities to take away from it.

3. Create an idea repository.

Set up a simple system to collect your ideas. Because our best ideas tend to come when we’re not sitting at our desks, and unconscious thought plays an important role in creativity, carry a paper notepad, save interesting articles in Pocket, or dictate your sudden insights to your smartphone.

Finding a time and place for regular writing covers the “mechanical” aspects of the problem. If these approaches are not helpful, you may have to look at some deeper reasons why you aren’t writing as regularly as you should

4. Address your reasons for procrastinating.

If you find yourself overly ready to give up on your scheduled writing time, for any reason that comes along, you may have to probe a little deeper. Explore how your attempts at writing make you feel–do you doubt your ability to write convincingly, or does it take an unreasonably long time to put a short paragraph together? Are you comparing your work to other people’s writing while you wait for inspiration? It may be useful to seek honest feedback on your drafts from colleagues or friends whose criticism you can accept. Being clear about the purpose of your writing (target audience, platforms where you plan to promote the content, other possible uses in the future) can also make a writing task more specific.

5. Beware of perfectionism and over-editing.

Are you editing your own work so much that the writing process is no longer enjoyable or productive?

“If you kill off all of your ideas because they are not great when you first think of them, then you don’t give yourself any raw material to work from. So, don’t stop yourself from working on an idea just because it hasn’t come together yet the way you hoped. Instead, play with it some more,” Art Markman advised recently.

Of course, your work should make logical points and be well written, but don’t let a false sense of perfection stop you in your tracks. Writing regularly allows you to start with imperfect draft versions that can be successively edited and polished. Since blog platforms such as WordPress or Weebly will save content in draft format, you can always keep several ideas in a development pipeline.

6. Ship it.

At some point, it is no longer a good use of your time to keep polishing a piece, perfection or not. Post your finished pieces and keep track of any feedback, keeping in mind that it may take a while before you gain visibility as an industry writer or blogger.

Given the vast amount of content available on countless platforms, it can take some time to move your writing out of obscurity. You may not become a top influencer on LinkedIn, but many industry publications are hungry for content and will also help market new pieces. Whether you want to generate content for your business website or work on larger pieces, publishing regularly is an essential step for building up an archive of articles that can be reposted. With time, a daily practice of writing teaches us to overcome a sense of “not feeling it.” In fact, writing a few paragraphs every day is not unlike other positive habits–it helps us grow in small steady steps.