Fitting writing into your life can be really hard. It’s especially hard if writing isn’t your only job. I’ve been an author since 2015 and I’m still working every day to make my writing fit more seamlessly into my daily life. When I began I was a university student and a mother to a 3 year old. I was trying to fit writing in around studying, classes and being there for my son. Now my son is of school age and I run this business and Little Crow Marketing while he’s in lessons. My work hours are set to 9am – 2.30pm, Mon-Fri. Obviously I sometimes work outside of those hours but I try to stick to them so that I have my attention on being mum after the end of my ‘work day’. Trying to fit writing into that can be a big challenge, but there are ways to make writing part of your life so that you’re not missing out on something else in order to get some writing done. Here are a number of ways you can include writing in your routine without it messing with the rest of your day.
Time Blocking
Time blocking is a method of organising your routine by time periods – such as hours or minutes – in order to be more productive. My workday is split between both businesses so that I can keep up to date with both parts of my work. I find that this works best for me to ensure nothing is getting dropped, as opposed to working alternating days for each job, but it depends on the person and what is going to work best for them. But by time blocking your tasks whether they be for work or fun, it allows you to focus solely on the job until you move onto the next block – if you’re worried about forgetting the time, you can use an actual timer so that you don’t have to rely on checking the clock yourself. As I’ve been writing for a long time so I know that I can write 500-750 words in a 30 minute writing sprint which is my word count for the day done. Here’s an example of how I might block out my working day in order to fit some writing in whilst still having plenty of time to get my work done:
9:00 WRITING SPRINT
9:30 CHECK EMAILS & RESPOND
10:00 SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT
11:00 CLIENT MEETING
12:00 LUNCH BREAK
12:30 CONTENT PLANNING
1:30 BOOK MARKETING CAMPAIGN
2:30 LEAVE FOR SCHOOL RUN
Dictation
Another way that you can get a decent amount of writing done during your packed day is by speech to text. Using an app you can record your story as you do other jobs just by speaking. This can take some getting used to – as a fantasy writer myself I do sometimes feel a little ‘silly’ speaking in public, if I’m on a walk for example, due to the fact that I’m often talking about made up places with a wide variety of events happening including prison breaks and sword fights – but it can be very effective for getting a decent number of words written. Not sure what kind of app to download? TechRadar has a list of best apps you can read.
Accountability
Having an accountability partner can keep you writing regularly where you may have been struggling to commit before. It’s extremely helpful if your accountability partner is also a writer as they can double as help if you get stuck with plot holes or writer’s block because they also go through these things with their own book. You can plan to check in weekly or daily depending on how much support you feel you need with achieving your goals. With an accountability partner you’ll also need to establish your goals so that when you check in with your partner you can accurately tell whether you’re succeeding or not. You goals can range based on what you want to achieve with your writing but the main goals tend to be either writing by word count or by time – if you are writing to a deadline then word counts are useful at keeping you on track to meeting that deadline.
Write. Publish. Impact.
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S. M. MITCHELL 