Use Fast Drafting for your Travel Notes

When you travel and need to blog about it, you won’t remember the memorable moments from your day unless you capture them in your travel notebook. In order to be a successful note-taker you need to start using a fast drafting technique. This will establish a habit to capture the daily events before you forget them.

There’s three elements to fast drafting your travel notes:

• Set a time limit to outrun your inner critic.
• Let go of perfection.
• Write every damn day.

We recently shared advice about how to let go of perfection when you’re fast drafting, and today we’re covering the importance of setting a time limit to be more productive.

Yes I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but in order to write more you have to force yourself to write quicker. You need that sense of urgency to be successful, and keep your writing on track.

Set a Time Limit

One of the biggest challenges is finding time to write when you travel. It can be a daunting task to capture your day, and you put it off because you don’t have a hour or so to spare. But forget that hour, you don’t need it.

All you need is 20 minutes a day.

You may prefer to do a data dump at the end of each day, or leave it until the following morning. But the key is to fast draft the day’s activities before you start the next day’s adventure, because as soon as you have too much to think about and write, that’s when you’ll start to get overwhelmed, and won’t write anything.

I prefer the structure and routine of an evening writing session. After a day of exploring there always a lot of ideas swirling around my head and I like capturing the sensory details before I forget them. I focus on the moments and interactions that had the biggest emotional impact on me, because they’re the elements that have the power of having the biggest emotional impact on my readers.

Fast drafting, like freewriting, is all about setting a time limit on your writing session, and then creating a sense of urgency to capture sensory elements. If you don’t set a time limit on your writing session you will spend too much time analyzing what you’re writing, and end up writing too much. The goal of fast drafting is to write less not more.

Another reason to set a time limit is that when you write fast, you can outrun your inner critic.

Your subconscious mind works faster than you conscious mind, so writing as speed gets you into a writing flow. This allows you to tap into your subconscious memories that will help you create the best travel writing. When you write fast your inner critic can’t interrupt you. You’ll write uncensored, and you’ll write without editing or second guessing what your writing.

I used the 750words.com website to capture how long it takes me to reach 750 fast drafted words, and 95% of the time it takes between 15-20 minutes. Even with my practice it sometimes takes me a while to get into the writing zone. It’s key to remember that we’re aiming for consistency, not perfection! I prefer writing to voice to text, but when I’ve experimented with this alternative fast drafting technique, it only takes between 9-15 minutes to reach 750 words. So if you can embrace this approach, welcome to the fast-track.

You can put a time limit on your overall writing session or set a shorter time limit to capture specific locations, events or encounters during your day. For example, set 20 minutes to capture your day, or if you 4 events you want to fast draft about, set yourself 5 minutes for each event. These are time limits that work for me and my fast drafting model, and have been fine-tuned over time, so to establish you’re ideal time limits you’ll need to suck it and see.

A Fast Drafting Journal

If you’re a fan of handwriting your notes, it’s best to opt for a smaller notebook that one where you’re faced with a huge blank page. Avoid an A4/10×8 page, and go for a journal or notebook half the size.

That’s the reason my blank 5 Senses Travel Journals are half the size (5×8 inches)—I wanted to limit the amount of space available to capture my sensory recollections. This limits that overwhelming need we feel to fill up a blank space.

This journal is based around using your five senses to capture key elements from your day. These memorable moments will add depth to your travel writing, and will make it easier for your audience to connect with your writing.