Article marketing isn't rocket science, but it does require regularly submitting articles over an extended time period. Despite our best intentions, sometimes we slack off on our writing! It happens to the best of us, but don't worry-- in this article I'll show you 5 productivity tips for getting your article writing habits back on track:

1) Set goals.

Establish how many articles you'd like to submit each month. Research has shown that folks who actually spell out what their specific goals are have a much higher success rate than those who don't. This is true of any endeavor, not just article marketing, so DO take the time to establish some writing goals for yourself.

Remember that you need to submit articles regularly, but you don't want to submit bunches of articles all at once since most quality publishers don't appreciate that. I recommend a moderate submission rate of 1-8 articles a month.

2) Make a date with your articles.

After you've decided how often you'd like to submit articles each month, schedule dates on your calendar for writing your articles so that you can be sure to meet your goal. This may sound like a no-brainer, but I know from personal experience that if I don't schedule my article writing time I'll put it off as long as I can. Making a date with your articles will help you stay on track.

3) Plan out a series of articles.

I know how many articles I want to submit each month, and then right before the beginning of each month I plan out what I'll be writing about at each writing session. This save me loads of time! I'm never sitting at the computer screen twiddling my thumbs wondering, "What should I write about?"

I've taken care of that ahead of time by determining my writing topics at the beginning of the month.

The simplest way to do this is to plan an article series. Let's say you want to submit 5 articles a month--think of a topic having to do with your website that has 5 elements to it.

For example, for myself I could spend a whole month writing about the various aspects of "How to Write a Sticky Resource Box". Then I plan out what part of that topic I'll write about for each article. As I sit down for each article writing session, the guess work is taken away, and I can hit the ground running with my writing.

Note: I do not recommend doing a series where you say in the title Part 1 or Part 2. Yes, *you* know you are writing a series of articles, but each article you write should be able to stand on it's own from a reader's perspective.

4) Timeboxing.

Timeboxing is a time management method I use to trick myself into getting the most work done in the least amount of time. With timeboxing, you dedicate a certain amount of time to complete a task. You time yourself and give yourself a definite deadline, then you stop once the time is up.

Why does this work?

There is something about the human brain that appreciates a sense of urgency. When our brain senses that time is limited, it kicks into high gear and helps us make decisions faster, write more efficiently, and do any task that we're trying to do at optimum performance.

5) Learn time scheduling from professional writers.

I have learned so much from watching how professional writers schedule their time. They do this for a living, day in and day out writing on a deadline--we can learn from them!

Here are some writing tricks from the pros:

*Write early in the morning, before your day has gotten hectic and while your brain is still fresh.

*Write for 2-3 hours and then quit for the day--don't try to force yourself to write longer than that.

*Schedule your writing times and don't try to write at other times during the day.

*Create a little ritual to kick off your writing sessions--a cup of coffee and a quick browsing of the newspaper are common writer rituals.

*Write in a quiet place--not in the cafe, not in the rowdy living room, but tucked away in as isolated and private a place as you can find.

Now it's time to start writing...TODAY! Imagine how successful you'll feel when you look back on the past month and realize you've reached your writing goals.