Time management

I think that depends on what you consider to be an opportunity. I definitely don't think that you should be trying to research circus acrobatics for your latest WIP on your smoke break, or trying to write a few paragraphs because you have forty minutes before you have to go pick the kids up. I think that is counter productive even, because you won't get anything really productive done and worse you'll spend most of that time just trying to remember where you were last time and not even getting what you wanted done.

But if you think of an opportunity as being a reasonable chunk of time then yes, I can see that. I travel a lot for work and that often means four or more hours a day on a train and I often use that time to do writing stuff and that's I think a good approach. Maybe I don't get as much done as I would like but at least I can get through a scene or edit a couple of chapters in a day and it keeps my brain ticking over on the story I'm working on. Even if I'm not directly working on a real project I write a lot when travelling just to keep my eye in. It's dead time that often I have nothing better to do with, so spending it to do something writing related I think is a good way to use the time and it makes the travel feel a lot less onerous. There's days I spend eight hours travelling and coming out the other side with maybe a couple of thousand words, even if it's rough, feels good.

But you do have to be careful what you see as an opportunity to write, both in the positive and negative sense. You shouldn't try to force some productivity out of an impossibly small space. But you shouldn't let yourself ignore more reasonable opportunities to write just because you'd have to write on your phone.

I suppose what I'm saying is that maybe you should adopt the "Why not?" standard for finding those opportunities. There's always a reason to write; we all want to get our projects finished. But a better approach is to see if there's a good reason why you should be doing something else. Why not write now? Because I only have ten minutes and I'm supposed to be working anyway. Why not write while you're on a train to Bedford? No reason not to, nothing else I can do anyway, and it's a couple of hours so why not?

 

For me, that two hours every morning is an escape. I can block out money, work, or anything else that's stressing me out at the moment and escape to the world my novel is set in.
And, when my MC struggles with worrying about meeting the financial obligations of her business, or has a fight with her significant other, or her dog gets hurt, or, or, or ... I can write it realistically because I KNOW the stress she's under.

In fact, I use stress as a tool to improve my writing. Had an ugly argument with the man last week so I sat down and wrote out the anger and hurt feelings. Rather than give it to him and make matters worse, I saved it as "Anger and Hurt," in a file called Emotion. When I have to write a scene with a fight between loved ones, I can read over that and use it to help me capture the emotion.

(That ends my response to your quote, the rest of this is just me lecturing all of you, and myself! lol)

As others have said, discipline is critical if you're serious about your writing ever being anything more than a hobby. That may be harsh, but it's the truth.
Think of it like being self-employed. You don't have a boss standing over you telling you to punch the time clock and do what you're supposed to do. YOU are the boss and YOU are your employee. If you (the boss) don't demand that you (the employee) sit down at your desk (or wherever you write) each day and do your "job" it isn't going to get done. If you went to your IRL job and told your boss, "I'm too stressed out to work right now. I'm going to sit at my desk, drink coffee, and stare out the window until I feel a little more motivated or inspiration strikes me." What do you think would happen?

You have to be a slave driver with yourself when it comes to your writing. Screw writer's block, screw stress, screw the TV blaring in the other room. Those aren't excuses in the working world, and they shouldn't be in your writing world either. Writing IS work. Either you want the job or you don't.

 

Working on my WIP is the most stimulating time of the day for me and I prioritize that, so I've simplified a lot of things to get that time: making dinner in the oven where it takes care of itself and maybe make batches to reheat quickly. I do several errands on the same day instead of spreading them out if I can, I cut out social media like Facebook completely, because it messed up my focus and took time without being very rewarding. I don't even own a TV anymore. I chucked it out and only watch selected stuff on the computer (that freed up a lot of time I can now spend on writing). When I have to do the other necessary boring things in life, I use that time to think about my story and come up with ideas, so when I get to the computer later I have stuff to write. Washing dishes is especially great for building plot, heh. But sitting down with nothing in my head, staring at blank page in Word, I'd never do that in a million years. It sounds mind-numbing, and stressful. If I don't have a project I'm excited to write, that's when I clean the house from top to bottom or clean the gutters, or read or watch movies & shows, do social stuff, or go online to Pinterest or something, all while brainstorming for new ideas. That's what I do, but I also have the opposite problem; more ideas than I could possibly write.

 

@TWErvin2 and especially @Mrs.Smith

I agree that the best way to keep writing under stress is to wake up earlier than you would and use that extra time to get writing done. It doesn't change the rest of your day. In fact, you could argue it's completely separate. Still, I think it would just be easier if there wasn't all the stress

 

For me getting up a few hours early to write would be a recipe for me never writing. If I'm stressed enough to need to get up early then it's to go and deal with that stuff, not to try and knock out a scene before the world comes to eat my brain for the rest of the day.

I think that dealing with stress and dealing with worry are two different things that you need to approach in a different way. Stress is something that's almost physical, that makes your heart beat hard even when you're sitting still, that stops you sleeping and makes things harder. That's something that I don't think you can just beat via scheduling or time management; if it's that kind of thing that's stopping you writing then you need to deal with that directly. Worrying is something else. It can be a form of stress certainly, but on a day to day basis you can get past it by thinking in better ways and better arranging your time.

So we should be clear what we're talking about. There's a difference between trying to get yourself in a productive headspace when dealing with the worries of life and trying to still work when the world is hammering against your brain. If writing does help you destress then by all means you should do that. But if you're struggling just to make time to write at all because the world is kicking the crap out of you then getting up early to write is just going to make you exhausted and feel like you aren't doing the stuff you should be.

 

I agree with you 100%, since the morning routine has worked for me in times of worrying but unfortunately not so much in times of stress.

 

I can totally understand that. The past month for me has been very stressful; living with my ex while I find a new place with all the recriminations, tears and anguish that implies all while trying to work and write. I wasn't quite paralyzed but man it was a slog. Just trying to get my head straight was almost a full time job and it took until I had sorted my new place and finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel for me to find my zen again and start feeling like me. And writing was... Well, I did my best to focus, even started a nice, happy upbeat side project to kinda throw myself at to get myself feeling happy. That helped for sure, but actually doing serious writing was difficult, especially when I wasn't sleeping really at all.

Stress is nasty stuff, especially that kind of ambient stress where there isn't anything you can do right now anyway. It just sits in your head like a black hole and it's hard to chase away. The best bet I think is to just be as productive as you can be but to focus on solving the stress instead of your writing. Definitely you shouldn't beat yourself up for putting writing on the back burner while you sort your life out.

 

When I'm writing daily, my method is to get all of my other chores/work done before I sit down to write. That way I won't be distracted or able to procrastinate on other stuff, plus it usually means I'll start writing at some point in the afternoon, which I've found is key concentration hours, for me. And possibly most important, it means that I'll have clean dishes and food to eat later on.

And then after writing, I reward myself with netflix or video games or whatever, so that I do get to do leisure activities even if most of my time is eaten up by writing.

I've been experimenting here lately with writing sprints, where I set a timer for half an hour and challenge myself to get down ~1000 words in that amount of time. They may not be great words, but it's quantifiable productivity, it gives me something to work with which is always better than nothing, and it powers past that 'clearing your throat' period when you first start writing and you're not totally sure what you're doing yet. I'll let myself check social media (cough this forum cough) for a bit, then do another sprint. Usually, the sprint turns into a regular writing session naturally, and I've bypassed the three hours of tooling around, staring at a blank page.

 

That's a really good idea actually, especially for those who don't have as much time as they'd like to write. I think one of the big challenges when you only write a few hours at a time is getting over the hump and getting back into it again. That's one of the biggest problems I have with trying to write in a two hour slot, it just takes me so long to pick back up that I don't even bother trying.

Although in a funny way I actually already do this kind of thing without consciously trying. This is exactly the kind of process I use when I'm on a train. I just write. Pick a scene and write. No piddling around, no reading notes, just sit and write and if I need to fix it later I'll fix it later. And that's been successful for me. No, I don't use all of what I write there, I doubt I even use half, but it gets you into a good headspace for writing where you aren't trying to be perfect you're just trying to get shit done. And it feels really good for me to get off my first train (17 minutes end to end) and see I've written 400 words like that, and then when I get onto my London train and I have an hour I'm already lubed up and ready to rock.

 

Lots of good advice here. So, to compile it...

FINDING TIME:

• Save time. Make casseroles, crockpot recipes, canned soup, easy food like chicken you can just toss in the oven.
• Get up early in the morning. Or don't, if that doesn't work for you.
• Some people work better if they have a big chunk of time to write in. Put aside an entire day, once in a while, to just sit down and write. Weekends are good.
• For other people, it's easier if you find small pieces of time here and there. Write during your lunch break. Write on the train.
• At some point, it all comes down to self-discipline. You need to find time to do it. Sometimes that means you have to make sacrifices and push yourself.
• While you're doing boring things -- washing dishes, walking the dog, ect -- use that time to brainstorm and plot for your next session.
• Addicted to the internet? Keep getting distracted? Try Cold Turkey. It's a website blocker that blocks specific websites for a certain period of time.
• Try writing sprints. Set a timer (maybe an hour) and write as much as you can.

TO HELP YOURSELF GET STARTED:

• Try editing the last scene you wrote last session.
• If you can't get started, trying jotting down random plot ideas until something strikes you.
• During the day, whenever an idea hits me, I'll scribble it down on a piece of paper and stick it in my pocket. Later that night I'll type up whatever it was (a piece of dialogue, a scene idea, ect).
• When you're done, reward yourself with something relaxing, like Netflix.

It's a lot of little things.

 

Is there something like that for Solitaire? I'm ashamed to say that I sometimes open it to play a round or two as a "break" from some other task, then find I've been at it for an hour. I don't know if it can be uninstalled with Windows 10, but it needs to go away. There are other mindless activities that I could be doing when I need a break!
If you've read any of my other comments about discipline, please refrain from calling me a hypocrite ... lol

 

A writer in one of my writing circles got stuck in this rut. She wanted to submit a goal of 5,000 words each month for the group to review, and it was always a hot mess because it was written in that attention-hopping approach. Characters appeared and disappeared in a room, had different opinions of something in the same conversation, POV head hopping...

I get it, it can all be "fixed in post" (aka rewriting) but there wasn't even a coherent story happening in these snippets... just a jumble of events and conversations... was the time not better spent meditating, I wondered. And furthermore, if this is her process... if she expects to have this level of concentration during rewriting too, I don't see it actually getting better... my feeling is that this type of scheduling won't work for somebody who has concentration issues.

 

There are a lot of focus apps out there, in addition to apps that can be used to reduce distractions even though they're not designed specifically for that.

For example, I've programmed my router to block facebook and some adware network servers.

Tristan Harris has made it a sort of mission to help people remove distractions, he has a website (http://www.timewellspent.io/) with some suggested apps, although most seem to be smartphone based - except for something called Freedom (https://freedom.to/) which looks similar to Cold Turkey and might be able to block your Solitaire app.

 

*nods* Yeah that's one of the biggest pitfalls of working like that. Yes you can maybe hit your writing goals but if they aren't coherent then it's not all that useful. That's why I've always worked on discrete writing days. And, well, I wouldn't really advise my process exactly to others (it involves narcotics) but at the same time; I've been writing every third day or so for the past four years and I've written ten complete manuscripts, about two and a half million words, and edited eight of them into completed books. I have other problems thet've made my books difficult to publish but no-one can say I haven't been fairly prolific.

And why? Because I make those big blocks of time. And no, I can't claim that this is something that'll work for everyone. But there is certainly something to be said for writing your work in solid chunks. Even massively overwriting everything at least having good coherent blocks of text to cut from is helpful.

 

The answer is, you can't do everything plus write, if you want to turn out quality work. There are only 24 hours in a day, and if those 24 hours are already filled with other things, you have to give up something. Like anything else you want to do well at, you have to sacrifice something to gain something.

As to balance...when I'm working on a project that's important to me, I treat it like Final Exams. When you're in the midst of finals, there is no balance. and you focus on finals. The overall balance comes by planning in advance to do lighter project, big heavy project, lighter, heavy...

I'm single and live in a creative community, so friends are understanding when I need to drop out of sight to focus on a project, because they're creative professionals who sometimes have to as well. If you keep at it, you'll develop a similar group of friends.

Depending on where you do laundry, that works well with writing. You have 30-40 minutes during a wash, and 60-90 minutes for a dry, to get shit done. Laundry days are when I tend to do editing or research. If you use a shared laundry room or laundromat, bring your phone and a list of research you need to do. Or a hard copy printout of something you need to edit and a red pen. Or if it's not a place where you'd feel it might get stolen or that you might get jumped as you leave, bring your laptop. Failing that, bring a notebook or legal pad and plenty of pens or sharpened pencils.

Cooking and dishes are the biggest pain, because my place doesn't have a dishwasher. (See various entries in my Progress Journal. I complain about this often, and sometimes you'll even see what I eat.) When I'm deep in a project, I make things like pasta sauce in the slow cooker, or I'll schedule a cooking day and make several things to have in the fridge to nuke during the week. When I cook, I always make leftovers. Conversely, some weeks, especially in the summer and early fall when it's too hot to cook, I live on Lean Cuisine or prepared salads and cereal and yogurt and Postmates delivery.

I am not a morning person. My body clock has always been wired for the most energy and clear thinking at night. When I must write in the morning, I start with something easy like a journal entry or update my progress journal or answer some questions in the forums to wake up my brain. Then I go write.

Hopefully, there's something in here that will help. Ultimately, it's just about deciding to do something and actually doing it.

 

Ohh, that's a really good idea. I already set a timer so I don't forget my laundry - I could just combine that with a sprint.

 

I use the Pomodoro technique. My routine is as follows:

- set timer for 4 minutes, and then free-write (basically just write whatever comes to my head)
- stop as timer goes off
- set timer for 26 minutes, and then write
- stop as timer goes off

My mind gets intimidated when I don't set timers. Also, when I set up a timer, I'm committing that 30 minutes for writing and writing only. Bathroom breaks be damn (but if the apartment is burning, eh). Once the timer goes off, that's when I take a breather.

 

I absolutely could not work like that. It'd be a one way ticket towards me smashing the timer into little bits. Actually sorting out the timing would be much more of a distraction to me than just working through. In fact, losing track of time is kinda important to how I work, getting in the zone and working until I'm done.

 

It's named after a model of kitchen timer, shaped like a tomato.

[Pomodoro Technique]

I'm with @LostThePlot... I can't focus if I know constant interruptions are imminent. For me, writing needs a good flow situation to get volume and quality.

I even have to sequester my cat. His life long vendetta against the cursor (1) makes writing completely unproductive.


(1) I gave him a backstory: a Macbook cursor killed his father.

 

Yeah, there's just something weird about sitting there knowing that I have exactly 27 minutes left to write that doesn't quite work for me.

The cat I stole off my former neighbors liked to sneak into my office and jump unexpectedly onto the back of my chair, something that never stopped being absolutely terrifying no matter how many times he did it. But it was hard to stay mad at him

 

Yep. What works for one doesn't necessarily work for others. It's like outlining: some love it, some loathe it.

But for the OP, experimentation is key. Try out some processes until your brain goes "I like that! Do it again." That was what my brain said when I came across the Pomodoro technique.

 

Agreed - time management is an investigation into the potential and limitations of one's temperament and environment.


Addressing the OP question - ideas for time management - I discovered that I'm not a 'list' person - I turned out to be a 'calendar' person. I put all my to-do items in the calendar as appointments. This also helps me be realistic about my list, as I don't go into the weekend with 60 hours of 'to do' items. I know in advance that I have to spread them out over a month. And everything goes over, so I pad an extra couple hours for "...didn't have the part, had to go to Home Depot." If there's a miracle and I don't have to use the buffer, I can move something forward from next weekend.

Meal planning has helped a lot. It means fewer trips to the grocery store, and less time wandering in the aisles. For me that comes to several hours saved per week. The meals are in my calendar, the grocery lists are in my calendar. (OK, that's technically a list, but they're inside the shopping appointment) Unfortunately, I can't get away with oversimplifying my meals, as one of my family goals is to teach my kids to cook from basic ingredients.

 

It sounds like you are spending more time thinking about writing than actually writing. I think we all go through periods of this. It just comes down to self discipline. When people say they can't find the time to write I have a hard time understanding what the real problem is. Those who want it bad enough find time. And those who want it really, really bad find even more time. It's pointless to think you should be writing every ten minutes if you're really not writing.