As I was brushing my teeth this morning, the obsessive nature of my routine became shockingly apparent.  Whenever I brush my teeth, I can’t just brush my teeth.  I MUST do something else at the same time – make my bed with one hand, put things away in the bathroom, pour myself a glass of water, anything really.  I’m sure my mother, a former dentistry professional, would shudder at the thought of my inadequate focus on my dental care.

What the hell does this have to do with anything?  How many people are still reading?  Who gives a crap about my morning habits, right?

It relates to the fact that my attention span, much like that of the average person, is highly fragmented.  Even moreso when you are thinking in terms of the Internet and how people process and manage their online experience.

How many windows do you have open on your screen at one time?  How many social networking sites are you updating at once?

Having so many things operating in your mind and on your screen at one time means that distractions come easy.   This BBC article even goes as far as comparing the average attention span of an avid internet user to that of a goldfish – meaning that concentration is lost after a mere 9 seconds.  And shiny distractions online have increased exponentially in the 7 years since that was published.

This fragmentation is especially important to consider when composing the copy on your website. You need to cater to increasingly impatient customers. Tell them what they want to hear right away, or they will go elsewhere to find it.  You might offer the best solution to their problems, but if you aren’t able to communicate that to them quickly and with the right language, you’re hooped.

Tips on Streamlining Your Web Copy

• Get rid of fancy language: you’re not selling your customers your advanced vocabulary, so make sure you are describing what your product or service can do for them in the simplest terms possible.
• Make your copy scannable: help your site visitor find what they are looking for quickly by organizing your content.  Shorten paragraphs, break them up into small chunks, add bullet points, use bold subheadings.
• Get to the point: focus on the most important benefit your customer can get from your product or service right away, preferably before they have to scroll down.

Man, that took a long time to type with one hand.

I think New Years resolutions are kind of dumb.  If you want to make changes in your life, don’t waste any time.   Do it as soon as you recognize the need, whether that happens to be on January 1st or April 29th.  Let’s all give the gym regulars a break so they don’t have to put up with unusually high traffic for about a month while they share exercise machines with Chubby Charlie’s guilt.

Since tomorrow is the day when a lot of people think about their goals (after the champagne headaches subside), and put them into action, I’ve decided to compile a list.  This list is a personal one for myself and my goals, and I’ve already begun to incorporate some of these practices as I’ve picked them up over the last year.  Other writers might also find these productivity tips useful.

Good writers write every day.

In his book The Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell proposes that success comes from the ability to practice your craft for a total of about 10,000 hours.  Many authors credit the completion of their books to committing to a certain amount of hours of undistracted writing daily.  But how do you do that when you’ve got five different social media profiles to maintain and your attention span is slowly being whittled away by the highly fragmented nature of online communication?!

Ommwriter is a really neat word processing program that shuts out all other distractions from your computer screen, including your dashboard menu icons, and allows you to type away without computer based distractions such as the internet and other program windows.  You can also choose the sound your typing makes (an old school typewriter for example) and your soothing background music.

Try setting aside an hour or more each day to write anything at all either using a program like Ommwriter or your own highly-coveted powers of focus.  Work on one of your current projects, or just write whatever comes to your mind.  And don’t forget about writing contests, which can be great for a little extra cash and a little boost to your ego.  Practice makes perfect.  Use it or lose it.  Any other cliches I’m missing here?

Volunteer your writing skills, but not too much.

This year I found myself with a bit of extra time on my hands and wanted to do something meaningful with it for a cause that I believed in.  I went full steam ahead into volunteering for a couple of different community media initiatives and helped my friend organize a huge charity event.  I felt great about what I was doing, but also realized that my volunteering had slowly begun to take up ALL of my time.

Volunteering is a great way to give back, improve your skills, learn new things, and meet new people, but it shouldn’t get in the way of moving your career forward with things like ‘paying jobs’.  So, 2010 is going to be more about ME, with some good deeds sprinkled throughout, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Blog more, dammit!

Ironically, I recently ghost wrote an article on the benefits of blogging, and now it’s time for me to practice what I preach.  I’m often contributing to other people’s blogs, and now it’s time to do more with mine.

Re-evaluate my online presence regularly.

There are a lot of great tools out there to measure the effectiveness of your online presence.  One of my favourite resources comes from a fellow copywriter Red Head Writing, who has a list of useful evaluation links on her site.  Run your website and even your twitter account through these tools to find out if there’s anything you could improve.

Keep up with industry developments.

Over the past year I’ve started to pay more attention to experts in my field by following them on Twitter and subscribing to their newsletters.  Here are some great ones:

Copyblogger

Red Head Writing

Writers Market

Conversation Marketing

Here’s to more amazing writing contracts, manuscripts, articles, blog posts, or whatever it is that you love to write throughout 2010 and beyond.

Located in the new Woodwards development, W2 is:

“… planned as a 14,395 square foot facility, and will be a community-based media and arts centre offering quality arts programming and presentation opportunities to Downtown Eastside and Vancouver residents through a range of programs, resources and activities… W2 will bring together hybrid art forms, community art practices, individual human development and community cultural development in a single environment. It will be home to a diverse grouping of Vancouver arts and community service organizations offering developmental programs in writing, radio and television production, painting, sculpture, photography, mixed media, video and cross-media.”

Get Involved

Currently in its very early stages, W2 is on the lookout for people who are interested in volunteering at events and on committees that will help steer it into the amazing community media resource that it should be. If you’re interested in getting involved, sign up to be part of the W2 online community, where you can join various interest groups and keep up to date on the unique events, programs and volunteer opportunities available.

Upcoming W2 Events

Fresh Hot Type! – LIVE Performance typesetting with MC Mike Sheehan (Victoria) mixing twitter-length lyrics freshly typeset by the audience on the W2 Woodward’s letterpress. October 24th at 8pm at W2 Perel Gallery 112 West Hastings.

Hot One Inch Action – W2 hosts Hot One Inch Action to bring together 50 artists, 50 buttons, and some hot button trading action with Vancouver’s hottest art audience. November 7th at 8pm at W2 Perel Gallery 112 West Hastings.

Created by Nick Bouton, Protagonize allows writers to create profiles and post any kind of story they like.  After posting the story, they can choose the way other members can add to it.  Members can follow their favourite contributors, rate their stories, and leave comments.  The result is an interesting collaborative exercise that breeds creativity and technical improvement, and connects users with a broad creative writing community.  Protagonize builds on the old Choose Your Own Adventure books we grew up with, except in this form they call it Addventure, or the creation of collaborative fiction.

Check out my profile and let’s make some storytelling magic together!