Category: Writing Life

Finding Time to Write

We all struggle to find a few minutes in our day to write. Here are a few tip to aid you in identifying opportunities in your day to make writing a priority.

1. Keep a Journal. For one week keep a notepad jotting down everything you do in the day, all tasks, household chores, work, lunch, making dinner, checking email, watching TV. Record all tasks, large and small for one week. This exercise will help you be conscious of how you currently spend your time. You might me surprised.

2. Identify the time stealers on your list. I’m sure there are plenty. These are items that you’re doing far too frequently with little to show for it. Are you aware how many times you check social media in a day and for how long?

3. Create a Plan to Minimize Your Time Stealers

Sleep. I don’t consider sleep a time stealer. However, I’ve always been envious of those who get through life on a minimal amount of sleep. No question the best way to add time to your day is to wake earlier and go to bed later. I have to be realistic, I don’t function on 5 hours of sleep nor can I make the jump from 8 hours of sleep to 7 or even 6 hours of sleep in one effort. I have been trying to wake earlier. Writing in the morning works best for me, but I also need my sleep. Every couple of weeks, I adjust my alarm clock 15 minutes earlier slowly adjusting my wake time and extending my day and writing time by a few more minutes.

Turn off the TV. Over the last couple of years, I’ve been involved in several writing groups and classes and one common characteristic I have found among writers who are getting the work done…they don’t watch TV. Many writers have sworn off television or limit their TV time, instead they spend time with the more productive and rewarding task of writing.

Limit social media and email. Don’t constantly check your email and Facebook and Twitter accounts. Social media is a huge distraction. Identify times in your day when you engage in social media and email and stick to it, set a timer if you have to and shut it down when the timer goes off. When you sit down to write, create a distraction-free zone, no TV, no email, no social media while you are writing.

Set targets. The more you write, the more you write. That’s not a miss-print. When you first start it might take you 45 minutes to write 500 words, but as you progress you’ll be able to crank out 1000 words in 45 minutes becoming more efficient and productive. Set yourself a target, stick to the plan and give yourself a good 30 days to find a groove making writing a new habit in your life. Here’s what I liked to do in the early days, when I needed a few minutes of distraction-free writing. I turned off all social media, and phones. I set my timer (a kitchen egg timer-for 30 minutes) and I began to write. Even if the telephone rang, I did not stop to answer it. It’s about choosing to make writing a priority! When the timer goes off, I took a 5 minute break, got a drink, stretched, and maybe checked who called. I set the timer and repeated. I used this process regularly when I started writing. I can now write in 5-6 hour stretches in the right conditions with little more than a few breaks and shutting out all distractions. I accomplished a lot using this method. If you have kids it’s also a cue to them, when the timer goes off mommy is available. I don’t use the timer too often anymore, your needs will change as you begin to develop good habits and it will all become natural. Consider the egg timer to find your distraction-free writing time. Despite whether you use time or a word count as your measurement for daily writing, set a target to help keep you on track and measure your daily success.

Be Proud. Let your family know it’s time to write, that means declaring your intention to them and offering up cues when you mean business. That might mean closing the door to your office, or hanging a sign but without their support you’re fighting an uphill battle. Share your goal and enlist their support. If your family has an awareness of your goals, they are less likely to intrude on your writing time.

Carry your writing with you. I always have my writing with me; it may not be my entire project on my laptop on Scrivener. However, there is always a yellow legal pad on my kitchen counter to capture those thoughts when I’m making dinner. I keep a notebook in my purse and on my smartphone, again readily available to write at a moment’s notice. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t get into some heavy writing in the middle of the doctor’s office but I do on occasion get an idea, a word or a sentence that comes to me out of nowhere. I always have something available to capture it. I know myself and that thought will vanish in seconds if I don’t write it down.

Don’t cheat. Like a diet, it’s a slippery slope if you’ve committed to writing six days a week and suddenly you’re convincing yourself you don’t need to write today…or tomorrow. Before you know it, a week has passed without a written word. I also know that we are human and sometimes life just gets in the way. Don’t beat yourself up but get right back on schedule.

Schedule Your Writing Time. Seems like a frivolous task, marking your calendar with your daily writing time. However, writing is a mental game. You must treat writing as a concern in your life, and adding it to your daily schedule, making it a priority alongside all the other tasks you must accomplish in your day is important to keeping it front and center. If it’s not important enough to mark it on your calendar, it’s easily overlooked and soon will take a backseat to anyone of your other tasks.

How to Make Writing a Habit 

We all have rituals in our life. Every morning, I wake and make myself a cappuccino, not those want-to-be cappuccino in those plastic k-cups. I make real Italian coffee in an espresso pot, served in my white cappuccino cup, extra foam and topped with cinnamon. The house is usually still dark; I turn on the light next to my chair. I pull a soft, knitted cream blanket across my lap, with coffee beside me and laptop in hand, I begin to write. It’s a simple routine and may not seem important to the outside observer, but to me it is the ritual that launches me into my writing time.

My writing time is distraction-free. There is no music playing, the TV is off and I have not opened my email or social media. Depending on my schedule, I may write for 30 minutes, I may write all morning. The practice of pouring that coffee, wrapping myself in a blanket and sitting in my favourite chair is my ritual. It’s very purpose is to place me in a mindset to write, to be creative.

Why do we want or need to create rituals? Rituals help us to habitulize events in our day, they give us one less thing to think about, one less task to plan.  When we begin any new routine and wish to establish it as a new habit, we usually fight it, we question it. There is usually an element of fear present. We are walking into the unknown and the unknown is fearful. If you’re just beginning to write your family history stories than you are probably experiencing some of that fear. You’re questioning whether you have the time or talent to complete this project. You fear you lack the skills and you fear what others may say about your skills.  It is unknown territory for you and therefore your fear is justified.

By creating a ritual, an environment that welcomes your new habit, and says ok, I’m here and ready to write, it opens the door to being creative, it eliminates the need to ask the question, why am I doing this? I already know, I perform these rituals to prepare myself to write. The ritual allows you to welcome the habit and to stop questioning its existence. The ritual won’t eliminate your fear, but it will help you to create a pattern, and help to keep the fear from disrupting your intent.

We all have rituals in our day. Morning routines, exercise routines, work schedules and bedtime habits are common practice in most people’s lives. Most of these routines develop quite sub-consciously. Think of the customs you created for your children when they were young to prepare them for bed, or nap time, or dinnertime. Rituals are ceremonial acts to prepare you for an event. In order to set up writing as an event in your life, consider creating a few ceremonial practices as your signal to begin.

Be aware of distractions. By allowing distractions in, you are sabotaging your efforts and your fear just maybe the cause. Stand your ground, don’t let fear sideline you with interruptions and excuses.

Each writer must find the environmental conditions that allow them to be creative. My morning routine is personal to me and me alone. You must find what works for you, what will prepare you and your mind. Rituals offer the signal; this is what I’m doing for the next 30 minutes, 60 minutes or 500 words.  This very rite aids you in creating an environment that is habit-forming.

How do you make writing habit-forming?

1.  Remove distractions, it clears time and mental space so you can focus on the task at hand.
2. Identify the writing environment that allows you to be creative. It might take a couple of adjustments to find what works for you, but be aware of your surroundings and how they affect your writing process.
3. Develop rituals that prepare the environment for writing and signal your mind it’s time to begin.
4. Write every day.