Writing is a great hobby for lots of people. Cozying up with a cup of tea and a journal is a great way to spend an afternoon. However, when you write for a living and have deadlines and word counts to meet, it becomes less romantic and more like a real job. Thankfully, there are a whole host of apps and extensions out there to help you improve your writing and deliver better results!

Here are 7 essential writing tools that will improve the planning, execution and reviewing of your writing.

Planning

TickTick - Organize your workload

TickTick is a great tool to help you organize your workload and deadlines. It's available as a Google Chrome extension, Android and iOS app, and desktop app. It’s a clean app that clearly and simply lays out your tasks. You can organize your tasks into different categories and set alarms and reminders. There’s also an incredibly satisfying ‘ding’ when you cross off a completed task!

If you upgrade to the premium version you get access to the calendar. It resembles the calendar app from Google but offers more levels of customization. You can also share lists with other users, which is great for collaborators. The paid version costs $28 USD per year, but the free version should offer enough for most users.

Toggl - Track your time

Time tracking is essential for many content writers and copywriters. As jobs may have allotted time or paid by the hour, we need to have a good time tracking app. Toggl is a lightweight time tracker that works through your browser or also as an app. Simply type in what project you’re working on and hit play. 

Time can easily be stopped and restarted, and there are detailed reports and insights available too. It’s great for jumping between jobs without getting confused when it comes to billing. The free version allows for a team of 5 to use the software, with paid versions offering bigger team sizes and more detailed reports.

Writing

Google Docs - Hasslefree writing

Where would we be without Google Docs? Easily the most accessible and intuitive cloud-based writing software out there. When using Google Chrome and logged into your Google account, simply type ‘doc.new’ into the search bar and you’re straight into a new document. There are a handful of readymade templates, or you can make your own or download some new ones.

Goggle Docs automatically save to your Google Drive account. You can share documents easily with others and then watch in real-time as they make edits and add comments. Google Docs is completely free to use. It’s an absolute must!

Reviewing

Grammarly - Spell & Grammar Check

Picking up on grammatical and spelling errors has never been easier thanks to Grammarly. You can either write directly in the Grammarly app or download the Google extension and allow it to work within Google Docs. 

Grammarly works differently compared to most spellchecks. Rather than just correcting spelling mistakes Grammarly also takes context into account. It makes suggestions to change verbs, articles and even remove unnecessary phrases. The free version should be more than enough for most users. If you want to go for the premium version expect to get suggestions for complex punctuation and alternative word choices.

Hemmingway App - Digital Proofreader

Hemingway App is best described as a digital proofreader. Simply paste your document into their online tool or desktop app and let it pick out your errors. It lets you know if you’ve used too many adverbs, unnecessary words or if the passive voice features too heavily in your piece. It also gives you a readability score based on school grade levels and how long it will take to read the piece.

The most useful feature of the Hemingway App is that it tells you what sentences are hard to read. Sometimes long sentences are essential, but often they can be shortened to make them punchier and easier to read.

Natural Readers - Hear it back

Another great way to pick up on small mistakes is by having somebody read it back to you. Unfortunately for most of us we probably don’t have the luxury of somebody reading our work back to us out loud. That’s where Natural Readers comes into play. This is a text to speech software that has a number of lifelike voices to use.

When a piece is read back to you it is easy to spot embarrassing mistakes like the dreaded ‘the the’. The free version allows for 20 minutes of ‘Premium Voice’ reading per day and can even be added to Google Docs via a Chrome extension. The paid version has unlimited use of ‘Premium Voice’ and can read PDFs.

Fresh Eyes

Ok, so this one isn’t technically a writing tool, it’s more of an analogue technique. When we write for hours per day it can be hard to separate yourself from your work. That’s why it’s a great idea to write well in advance of your deadline and allow time on the day of submission to read over your work with fresh eyes. You’ll be amazed at some of the things you missed whilst thinking about tone, keywords and word count.

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Filed in // Productivity, Content Development