Identify Your Writing Bottlenecks to Become a More Effective Academic Writer
Struggling to finish your academic writing projects? This post explores how identifying and managing writing bottlenecks can help you write more effectively, stay focused, and overcome procrastination.
Today, I’m diving into finding and understanding your writing bottlenecks. Even though I’ve made a lot of progress lately, I realized there are still hidden obstacles that slow me down—especially between drafting and editing. If you’ve ever wondered why it’s so hard to finish a paper even after doing all the research and planning, you might find this post helpful. Here’s a look at what’s been working for me, what still needs fixing, and how I’m rethinking my writing routines.
Obstacles to getting writing done
Don’t we all know the problem? We’re supposed to get academic writing done, and yet there seem to be insurmountable obstacles—whether it’s having too many other things on your plate, not really knowing what to say, or something else entirely.
As you know, I’m on my academic writing improvement project, and things have been going pretty well. I’ve learned a lot about academic writing and how to make it more persuasive. Even though I still have some blog posts to summarize this process and I’m still working on creating a new outline template to reflect my new insights, I feel like I’ve completed the learning phase of how to craft a persuasive article. Now, I’m ready to put that into practice. I’ve tried to recraft my arguments to be more convincing a couple of times already and I feel like that’s working.
As you might have followed in some of my related posts, I’ve been identifying the different parts of the writing process and trying to schedule them in ways that match my biorhythm—and I’ve been successful with some of them. I find I can actually get quite a bit of reading done now, mostly thanks to the Listening.com app. I still need to figure out how to get better at reading physical books, though. Right now, my physical books tend to get read mostly when they’re lying around, creating a visual trigger that reminds me to pick them up.
The downside, of course, is that when I don’t get around to reading, my apartment ends up cluttered, which adds to my stress. To solve this, I decided to line my books up into a pretty tower that looks much less visually distracting than my previous method. The difference in effort was minimal, but the impact on my living space was huge. However, this nice, neat book tower doesn’t really motivate me to read physical books in the same way as the messy piles used to. So, that’s one bottleneck I still have. But I think I may have uncovered another one.
Finding a New Bottleneck in My Writing Workflow
As I said, reading is going pretty well. I also have systems in place for excerpting material and a better understanding of what to do with those excerpts—namely, not putting them directly into the first draft. Excerpted material is inspiration, not finished text. Maybe there are some nuggets in there, but most of it is not going to be coherent enough for it to be efficient to directly use as article text.
Initially I have had the issue of not knowing when I’ve read enough to craft my argument. I have come to a conclusion with that in a previous blog post. I think I’m good with the research and the outline and crafting the argument, but then how do I get to finish the article? The real issue is what happens after outlining and crafting the argument: getting to a finished first draft.
Then comes editing, which is something I’ve also gotten better at. I know more about what to look for now, and after so much time generating new material (and honestly drowning in it), I’ve realized that editing mainly involves improving the argument or integrating peer review feedback—stuff I feel confident I can figure out with more practice. But the main bottleneck isn’t really editing at that stage.
My biggest problem is in the middle: after outlining and generating initial material but before the full draft is actually written. When outlining and excerpting go well, I end up with lots of rough text. But then, I feel overwhelmed by the amount. I’ve mitigated this a bit by reminding myself that not everything needs to go into the final article (which makes editing much less painful). Still, writing the first coherent draft is often about editing raw, messy bits into something structured.
Here’s what usually happens:
- I generate lots of text.
- I print it out and make notes on paper. (This part is fine.)
- But then it just… stalls.
I feel a block when it comes to putting my paper edits back into the document. Even though the task isn’t that hard—just tedious—I somehow resist it. I thought maybe I could make it easier by playing YouTube videos in the background while transferring edits. But it turns out I need more concentration than that. Listening to people talk distracts me too much to be productive.
Rethinking When to Do the Editing
I also started wondering: what would be a good time of day for this task? At first, I thought I could fit it into a lower-concentration part of the day. But now I’m thinking maybe it’s something I should do first thing in the morning, the same way I schedule proofreading.
I even tried again to move my Listening.com practice to the morning—thinking it would make my breakfast time more efficient. But, honestly, it backfired. As I already knew from past experience, reading or listening to new material makes me super creative… but not very focused. Instead of sticking to my planned priorities, I start getting excited about side research projects that have nothing to do with what I should be working on. So for me, Listening.com or reading articles is much better as a break-time activity—something I can do after my first deep work session, when I only have half an hour or an hour of time.
I’ve been reflecting on my editing bottleneck and how it might be tied to the times I allocate for it. I haven’t yet fixed this issue, but I’m starting to think the problem lies in being unrealistic about when I can best tackle it. I always assumed editing was a task for later in the day when I have less focus, as it feels like it requires less brain power compared to tasks like proofreading or generating ideas. However, I now realize that relegating it to low-concentration times may be why I never get around to it. When my brain power is depleted, even seemingly “lighter” tasks like editing feel insurmountable.
I’m considering trying a new approach: scheduling an editing session early in the morning, perhaps another brief one in the evening. I’ve noticed that evenings, when the buzz of the day fades, often suit me for writing tasks. This could be the hack I need to move past my bottleneck.
Knowing when to stop
Lately, I’ve been generating so much material that I sometimes feel like I’m already preparing for the next article, even before finishing the current one. This frustrates me, as projects get held up when I can’t wrap them up. I suspect my editing bottleneck is the main culprit. Recently, a deadline forced me to address this, and I realized I’ve been delusional in two ways. On one hand, I trick myself into thinking, “This isn’t much work; just get it done.” On the other, I now see that editing a thousand words takes me roughly one to one and a half hours of focused effort. Unless I’m binge-writing or under intense time pressure, I’m done after about an hour and a half.
Given that typical articles range from 7,000 to 10,000 words, this means I need at least 7–10 sessions to properly edit one article. This realization has shifted my perspective on the task: instead of dreading editing as a massive, insurmountable task, I can break it down into manageable chunks, integrating it into my routine more effectively. My frustration with editing may have stemmed from the misconception that I could complete all the edits in a single session. I used to think one to three hours would suffice, but in practice, that’s rarely the case.
This became clear while preparing abstracts for the upcoming Digital Humanities annual conference last fall. Each abstract was about 1,000 words, which turned out to be the perfect amount to edit in one session. Of course, shorter texts are easier to overview and edit, but longer articles require more sessions, which means more fatigue and effort to maintain coherence. I’ve also realized that the longer the article, the more detail I tend to include, which compounds the editing workload. I often catch myself wanting to include every possible relevant aspect as I proofread, which adds unnecessary complexity.
Wendy Belcher, in Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks, cites a prolific author who attributes his success to knowing when to say, “This is beyond the scope of this article.” This resonates with me, as I’ve noticed that longer articles not only take disproportionately more time to edit but also risk diluting their central arguments. This first became apparent to me when editing contributions for my edited volume. Articles that adhered to the 5,000–7,000 word range were far easier to edit, had clearer arguments, and felt more cohesive overall (in my opinion, although that’s on the shorter end for most articles in historical disciplines).
Less is more
For my own writing, I’ve come to believe that articles around 7,000 words are ideal. Longer pieces often lose the reader’s attention and are harder to edit in a reasonable amount of sessions. Moving forward, I want to write shorter, more focused articles. Not only is this more reader-friendly, but it also allows me to publish more articles and avoid cramming too many ideas into one piece. Belcher emphasizes the importance of limiting your article to a single big idea and I often struggle with this. But trying to include multiple ideas complicates the narrative structure and usually doesn’t end up working.
I’ve also noticed that prolific writers I’ve studied tend to cite fewer sources than I do. In historical articles, for instance, there’s typically a literature review and then then a main section with some citations from (mainly) the primary sources. When I examine the footnotes in this main section, I see they engage with outside literature sparingly, focusing primarily on the sources they are discussing. In contrast, I have realized I often fail to sufficiently interpret and discuss my historical quotations. Belcher also stresses this: each piece of evidence needs thoughtful interpretation, which is something I’m actively working to improve.
Maybe this engagement with evidence is something I need to explore further in this blog. There might be a few more posts to write about Belcher’s ideas and their application as well.
Last winter term, I’ve also been teaching about academic writing, which has been incredibly helpful. Perhaps I can share the slides from those sessions at some point. I’ve been spending so much time digesting my learning on academic writing that I’m starting to think it may even be time to distill these ideas into something more cohesive. Many of my blog posts are quite rambly and chaotic, so it might be worth refining them into a more structured form—maybe even a book? Of course, there are already many books on academic writing, but I feel there might still be room for my perspective. What do you think?
Coming back to investigating bottlenecks and what I have learned
Anyway, all I learned about when to best schedule certain writing-related tasks came from trying things out. You can’t just theorize about it and make a decision—that’s what I tried to do during my PhD phase. At the time, I learned about the advice to prioritize writing during the best times for my biorhythm, which is a common suggestion in academic writing guides. But I mixed it up with hustle culture advice, like “do the most important stuff right after waking up in the morning,” and ended up with a workflow that didn’t work for me at all. Now, I do some things early in the morning, but only certain parts of the process.
Back then, I didn’t even realize there were different parts to the academic writing process. If you’re reading this earlier in your academic writing career, you might avoid making the same mistakes.
It’s also important to develop a sense of when to do certain tasks. I didn’t have that and I feel like I’m still figuring it out. While the perfect timing isn’t necessary to get writing done, it does help to have realistic spots in your weekly schedule for specific tasks. The better those tasks fit your biorhythm, the more likely you are to stick to them, at least in my experience.
I encourage you to investigate your bottlenecks. If you feel stuck while writing, ask yourself: what are you actually stuck on?
For me, I’ve recently felt stuck and frustrated as my projects started piling up. I was generating more and more text, resources, and ideas I wanted to explore, but I wasn’t getting closer to a version of text I could submit. The growing pile of material became daunting, even though most of it was supplementary and not essential to the article at hand.
When that pile grows, it feels overwhelming, and I end up avoiding it. Then I get frustrated, especially when I want to move on to new projects. Sometimes I even start new projects, generating more material that no longer fits into the old article. I didn’t realize I was essentially already working on the next article before finishing the current one.
This realization—that I need to finish things—has become important for other personal reasons since late 2024 as I have changed institutions this March and wanted to get some old stuff finished.
I’ve come to see that my specific problem isn’t with making final edits to a paper. That process isn’t fun, but I now know how to do it. Earlier, I struggled with improving an article’s structure or argument because I didn’t know how to approach it. That lack of understanding made me feel paralyzed, stuck in analysis paralysis.
Now, I think the bottleneck is more specific: having notes on paper that I don’t transfer back into the digital document. Taking notes works well for me—I read my article, make edits, and jot down ideas without much trouble. But when I don’t put those edits into the document, I forget what I was thinking while making the notes. Then the process becomes stressful, and I fall out of the flow. This creates unnecessary costs in time and energy when I have to re-immerse myself in the project.
The main takeaway from this blog post, I think, is to understand the different stages of the writing process and experiment with what works best for you. Many of my ideas about task timing and process came from trying things out and adjusting based on what I’ve learned.
I’d love to hear if you’ve noticed similar bottlenecks in your writing routine—or if you have any strategies that have helped you move from outline to finished draft more smoothly. Feel free to share in the comments!
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Sarah Lang (June 7, 2025). Identify Your Writing Bottlenecks to Become a More Effective Academic Writer. Epigrammetry. Retrieved June 13, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/142ob