Time Management
We all know we can’t squeeze more hours out of a day. We can manage our time and our goals more effectively though. The key is to do so incrementally.
If you try to change too much too fast, the chances are you will find yourself sliding back into old habits. By making small and steady improvements over time, you can move towards significant and lasting lifestyle changes that will provide you with more time to write every day.
Start With Small Change
What are you doing that supports your writing? Do more of it.
What are you doing that detracts from your writing? Do less of it.
Modify Your Schedule
What can you change on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to give you more time to write?
- Consider whether or not there is a committee you can bow out of.
- If you have teenagers, is it time they did their own laundry?
- Look at your calendar and find an appointment to cancel. Cross it out and replace it with ‘writing’ instead.
- Could you get up an hour earlier in the morning or go to bed an hour later in the evening on some days of the week?
- Turn off the television. If you have a favorite show you don’t want to miss, record it and watch it at a time convenient for you, such as at the end of the day when you are too tired to write.
- Is it time for a social media sabbatical? How many hours a day do you spend on social media? Yes, hours. Even turning off notifications while you are writing can provide you with more time to increase your word count.
Multitask
It’s important to know what other authors are publishing. Reading, however, takes up valuable writing time. By listening to audio books, you can enjoy novels while driving, working out, preparing meals, and other activities.
Choose a driving vacation and take turns at the wheel. When you’re not driving, this is your chance to write.
We know people who’ve written novels traveling on the New York subway. Turn a commute into a productive writing session by seizing the opportunity and having a positive attitude.
Modify Your Goal
It may make sense to change or even drop a goal instead of part of your routine. If your goal is to publish ten sci-fi books, for example, you can make publishing ten books more achievable by changing your genre. Science fiction tends to have longer word counts because of all the descriptions involved in building the worlds. By choosing a genre with a lower word count, such as romance (50,000-75,000 on average), and you might achieve your goal in half the time.
Completing a novel isn’t the work of a single morning, so allow your improvements in time management to happen incrementally too. By consistently managing your activities, your attitude, and your goals, you can make more of your available writing time