Finding Time to Write

ACCORDING TO DIGITAL BOOK WORLD and Writers Digest survey, the median annual income for authors, self or traditionally published, ranges between $5,000 – $19,000. Not exactly enough to live on. That means most writers, including myself, have day jobs. Finding time to write is a legitimate challenge, but can become an excuse.

If you want to be an author, you have to take a hard look at next week’s calendar and schedule time to write. Easier said than done, I know. My husband and I have 6 kids between us. My day job and other passion is teaching, which takes Monday through Friday and usually spills into the weekend.  Add personal time commitments like doctor appointments, laundry, staying on top of the news so you can vote semi-intelligently, and perhaps having a social life, and you’ve got yourself a full week from the get go.

In order to carve time out for myself to write, I loosely use Steven Covey’s Roles & Goals system of time management. Pull out a blank calendar of the week ahead. Don’t worry if your calendar is already full, just see what you can eliminate that isn’t truly important and keep going. Eventually, you’ll find a lot more white space to use.

First, decide what’s important to you. YOU come first. Identify what you need to keep yourself healthy and balanced: physically, mentally, spiritually, and socially. How those areas are defined is up to you, but for me, it means I need to schedule time to walk, do some yoga, sit still for 5 minutes, keep in touch with friends, have a date night with my husband, and make sure I have healthy food in the fridge at work vs grabbing a donut in the teachers lounge or if I’m writing at home, a bowl of ice cream from the freezer. It’s counterintuitive, but if you take care of yourself first, you’ll have more time for family and writing.

Once those things are plugged into my calendar (without being overzealous – I’m never going to get up at 4 AM to go to the gym), I sketch in my Must Do and Important time chunks. Leaving the house by 7:15 most mornings gets me to work without stressing. That means I have to get up by 5:30 AM so I have 30-45 minutes to answer emails and do other short writing tasks, which may be marketing or research, before hitting the shower.

Know yourself. Some authors like to write an hour each morning, or like writing into the wee hours each night. That doesn’t work for me. I need my 8 hours of sleep! I also immerse myself when I write, so need large chunks of time. With this in mind, I am most successful when I schedule half or full days on the weekends. To each his own – find what works for you. And don’t beat yourself up if you miss a session, just get back to it and write!