Julie’s News

The time factor.
 

“If my doctor told me I had only six months to live, I wouldn’t brood.  I’d type faster.” – Isaac Asimov.
 

Time is a huge factor in productivity, and it’s the one thing virtually every writer I’ve ever met has complained about: I don’t have enough time to write.
 

When I first started writing, my kids were small and at home.  I wrote in 15 min increments.  That’s about how long my kids could go without interrupting me.   I didn’t write very fast (only 4 pages a week!) but I still wrote a book a year that way.  Here’s a list of some ways to write in smaller chunks:
 

Get up 30 mins earlier to write.
Write during your lunch and coffee breaks.
Hire a babysitter for 1 hr in the evenings so you can write.
Take your WIP with you to the grocery store and write for 20 mins in your vehicle before you go inside to shop.
Write in the bathroom.
Write in the bathtub (one of my personal favourites!).
 

Now that my kids are both in school full time I have 6 ½ hrs on weekdays to write, but do I get more done? 
 

I didn’t at first.
 

I fell into a common trap – I wasted my time on reading emails (and replying to each and every one as they arrived!), reading blogs, reading the news, playing games on my computer (solitaire is addicting!) and research (I love to research, it’s writing that’s hard!).  I discovered that too much time to write is almost worse than not enough.  I felt no sense of urgency, no sense of “I have to get this done” with 6 ½ hrs of free time stretched out before me, so I got lazy and ended up doing less actual writing than when the kids were at home.
 

I learned a hard lesson: Too much time = no writing.
 

This is where I started to micro-manage my writing time.  I began to think of my available writing time in smaller increments.  I MUST write 4 pages before 11 am, then I can have lunch.  I MUST write 4 pages before 1:30 pm, then I can run errands.  I MUST write 2 pages before 3:30 pm, then I can spend time with my kids as they come home from school.
 

I also limited my time spent on emails.  Now, instead of responding to each one as it arrived, I read and respond in the morning and in the evening.  I read blogs in the evenings and do research in smaller chunks.  I also removed the games from my computer, including solitaire (ouch!).