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Flowdrafter — Write faster by not editing as you go
A (weird-at-first!) free tool to help you write more productively by preventing you from editing as you go. Instead, get your first draft written as quickly as possible.
Once you have a first draft, you can then edit and refine it as you like.
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Replies
Matt Collins
Maker
📌
I've created this free tool as a way to help people write more productively.
If you're like me, you edit too much. It's not a good use of time.
Instead, you're better off getting a first draft down as quickly as possible, then refining it from there.
This tool helps you do just that.
It does a couple of things:
1) It prevents you from editing anything – you can't go back and delete or modify words or characters.
2) It hides what you've already written. So if there are mistakes, you won't linger on them or fret about them.
All in all, it gets you to your first draft faster.
Once you've got your first draft written, you can export it to another tool to edit and improve it.
Give it a try! It seems weird at first but can be super useful!
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@mattcollinsuk Such a unique approach to overcoming procrastination! I can see it being really effective for those of us who get bogged down by constant revisions while drafting emails or reports.
Quick thought: Have you considered adding a timed session option, like 'Write for 15 minutes' mode? It might help people build the habit of drafting quickly without overthinking.
Secondly, is there a way to set a word count goal or visual progress tracker? I feel like that might make it even more engaging, especially for those working on structured pieces like essays or short stories. GL :)
Maker
@hamza_afzal_butt Thanks Hamza. Great suggestions! The tool doesn't have those things at the moment but I could see them being useful.
@mattcollinsuk Hello there 👋🏻, You can also add a grammar checker.
Or paraphrasing tool..
Also a voice typing like google docs..✅
Congrats on the launch @mattcollinsuk.
I'm curious - how did you come up with this approach? Was there any specific insight or feedback that led to it?
Maker
@ashitvora Thanks Ashit! The initial inspiration was that I was looking for things to build to help promote my wife's writing coaching business and asked Claude.ai to tell me what problems writers commonly face. This was one of the things Claude mentioned: "I keep editing as I write, and it's taking me forever to make progress. I'll spend an entire writing session perfecting one paragraph."
Hey Matt, I am really curious about this. I love writing because it slows down my thinking and I often will turn a word mid sentence to find new significance that I didn't have in mind when I started (like this sentence).
However I'm often guilty of craming a lot of ideas into one sentence and maybe this could help me.
Maker
@terrence_kelleman Thanks for the thoughts, Terrence! I hope you find it useful.
This is so good. I wonder why the big players never thought of this feature. Kudos to you @mattcollinsuk.
This takes some getting used to... I found it maddening at first to not be able to even take back a space. It was ugly writing but I probably outputted more in a single session than I have in a very long time. This has some serious legs. Way to leverage AI to nail an idea. All in all, well done! I'll definitely be using it into the foreseeable future.
Launching soon!
I see this is particularly useful for:
- Breaking through writer's block
- First drafts of creative writing
- Brainstorming sessions
- Personal journaling
- Situations where quantity over quality is initially more important
However, for technical writing or formal documents where accuracy is crucial from the start, this might not be the best approach.
Good idea and nice first launch. I wonder if you should let people edit what they have immediately written, e.g. the last sentence or so. There's a big difference between that and being obsessed with perfecting a paragraph. I know that for me, not being able to fix small typos after I make them would be really frustrating.
I wonder how you ended up building this 😁 But in retrospect it makes sense, cool idea!
Maker
@juliangoetze Thanks Julian! A lot of the inspiration actually came from Claude.ai - I asked it "For authors who might hire a writing coach, what are 10 problems they might have, as they would describe them?" and one of the things it suggested was this: "I keep editing as I write, and it's taking me forever to make progress. I'll spend an entire writing session perfecting one paragraph."
What an interesting concept! I'm not a fan of tools that limit the user but I can see your point here. Definitely it would come handy when writing documentation to avoid entering the infinite loop of reviewing previous sections before finishing the whole document. Congrats on the launch! 🚀
Wow, as someone who struggles with perfectionism and overthinking, I found this such a great idea—one of those that make you go, "How come no one thought of this before?" Congrats on the launch!
This is such a unique and practical idea! For many of us who tend to over-edit while writing, this tool could be a real time saver. It’s great to see a focus on getting the first draft out quickly—often the hardest part of the process. I can see this being incredibly helpful for writers, students, and even professionals working on reports or proposals. Excited to give it a try and see how it boosts productivity!
Flowdrafter A is an innovative and effective tool for overcoming writer's block and boosting productivity. By preventing you from editing as you write, it forces you to focus on getting your ideas down quickly, which can be incredibly useful for first drafts. The "weird-at-first" approach makes sense because many writers struggle with perfectionism and over-editing, which can slow progress. Once the draft is complete, you can refine it without losing momentum. If you're looking for a way to write more efficiently, Flowdrafter A is definitely worth trying!
