Every year I say I'm going to participate in NaNoWriMo, but I never do.
I have a friend who does it almost every year and manages to pound out 1000's of words/day towards her goal. But she tells me the results are absolute sh*t, so I don't know if that makes it worth it or not.
Write every day (~500 words/day) and you will have a complete story draft in a reasonable amount of time. That's my advice and I try to stick to it.