Write Better And Faster Using The Index Card Method

Write Better And Faster Using The Index Card Method

In this article I'm going to discuss the "index card method" of writing. If you haven't ever tried it, you should know that using index cards to write is a very good and useful way to get the job done. It's easy once you get the basic idea, and if you practice it regularly you'll be able to produce better results and faster results on a consistent basis.

For the purpose of this article, an "index card" is the little 3x5 or 4x6 lined paper card that you can purchase at your local office supply store. They provide just enough room to write some notes but not so much to let you go off on a tangent!

Now for the methodology...

You'll need quite a few index cards on hand. You'll need anywhere from 50 to 500 depending on the size of your book.

Step 1 is to get your notes onto the cards. Go through your sources, your thoughts, your notes, and write a little bit of text for each topic on each index card. The more detailed you are, the better... but you don't want to over-do it. If you find yourself needing to turn the card over and write on the back you're probably getting carried away.

Once you have moved all of your project-related notes onto the index cards, you sift through the cards and start categorizing and organizing them. Break them up into groups of related topics. It's easiest just to create a few stacks and sort through them on your kitchen table or a similar surface.

The next step is to start to organize each individual stack into an order that "works". This is the point where you need to consider the FLOW of your story, and how the order of events in your writing is going to affect your audience.

Finally, once you have ordered each individual stack, you need to sort them into order from beginning to end. I usually like to think of each stack as a chapter or section of the book. Depending on how you've worked up until this point, the precise divisions and the meaning of a group of cards might be different for you.

Now you have your complete project in a collection of ordered, organized index cards. This is the point at which you begin the traditional "writing" process, of actually typing the manuscript using your index cards as a guide. I would not sit down with the whole stack of cards at once, but would instead use "divide and conquer" to tackle one group at a time, and in each group take things one card at a time.

You'll probably find at this stage that the writing process itself becomes more of a process of copying from the cards, paraphrasing, and "gluing" things together. If you have followed these steps faithfully to this point, your project will probably start to seem like it's writing itself! The only thing left to do at this point is to focus on style and form, and making your writing flow together well.

To review, for this method to work, you need to take the following simple steps:

1. Transfer your thoughts and notes to index cards
2. Categorize the cards into stacks of cards that can be grouped together based on topic, etc.
3. Order the cards in each group into an order that makes sense
4. Order the groups themselves into an order that makes sense
5. Write your first draft straight from the cards, "gluing" things together here and there where necessary.

If you practice this method faithfully, you'll probably find that it takes the difficult parts of writing and simplifies them, and allows you to spend more time on the parts of writing that you enjoy.

BONUS : Write For You - A Reader Focused Writing Primer

You want to write better, more engaging articles and content right? You want to get your message across and you want your call to action….actioned right? I am no writing expert, but I can tell you one thing, the secret to writing better starts with one tiny word….. YOU!

Your readers (And maybe your potential clients/customers) read what you have written for a reason. They read because they want to gain something from it. THEY want to gain something. They are not interested in how YOU are this, that and the other. They want to find out how what you are writing can benefit THEM. People are greedy. Even when they are not trying to be. They are greedy at a subconscious “Brain Sponge” level.

How many times have you read an article or blog and stopped reading half way through? How many times have you thought “God…this person likes to talk about himself”? And don’t you just hate conversation when someone else always talks about themselves? READ ON!

ALWAYS FOCUS ON YOUR READER

When you are writing, and especially when you are writing to sell something, focus on your reader. They (Usually) don’t care about how great your product is, they only care about how great it will be to them. Use the Words “You” and “Your”. Make your reader feel how much it is going to benefit THEM.

A great testimonial to this fact is a test I ran on a single eBook I used to sell. It was a single page website that sold an eBook on setting up a website. I played around with the copy a lot and the product was great, but it was not selling. I invested in a split testing software and created two different versions of the sales page. One was the normal sales copy and the other was the sales copy focusing on the user. So rather than “With our eBook” I had “With your eBook” etc. The results were surprising. By minimizing the use of “I” “We” and “Our” and increased the use of “You” and “Your”, the sales of the book increased by 60%. That’s a lot!

ASK QUESTIONS
Asking your readers questions is also a great way to engage them. Make them think. Make them ask the questions YOU WANT THEM TO ASK! Questions that YOU have an answer for. Have a specific call to action and lead them down the path.

I have used this technique on many sites in my network from the beginning and have seen great results. I am sure you will too.

***It should be worth noting that I (tried) to keep you engaged in this article by using the word you/your 30 times (Including this sentence) and asked 5 questions. Seems like a lot now but it worked, didn’t it?