Do you have any advice on how to balance writing with everyday activities? It's just, I never find the right time to write and I always feel like there's something more important to do.
Balancing Writing with Daily Activities
In fact, I DO have advice! This is something I struggle with a lot, as do many other writers. ♥
Here are some things that have helped me:
1) Be Realistic About Your Available Free Time
Sit down with a calendar and look at the current month--or just the current week if you prefer. Block out any days where you know you won't have any time to write, maybe because you have full day plans or something scheduled during your usual downtime. Now, look at each remaining day and consider how many hours of free time you will have on those days. "Free time" would mean time where that time doesn't have to be devoted to something else. Now, for each of those days, list out the non-writing activities you'd like to fill that time with on each particular day. This would be things like be socializing, playing video games, watching TV, working on a fun project... whatever activities you'd like to do on those days in the free time you have available. Think about how much time you'd like to spend writing each day, then assign an amount of time to each activity--either how much time you'd want to spend or how much time you think you'd spend. Now, see how each day pans out. Is there room for writing?
2) Make Writing a Priority
We all love to do things we enjoy, whether that's completely re-do our Animal Crossing island as Fairy Core, watch Encanto for the 77th time, or spend time in nature and find a nice spot to read a good book. However... if you have four hours of free time Monday through Friday, you can't do all of those things AND spend an hour writing. Something's got to give. So, looking at the activities you want to do on a particular day again, see which of those things you can prioritize behind writing. Maybe you reeeally need to take that 1-hour nature walk each day for self-care, so that's a top priority. But maybe you work on writing for an hour after that, and if there's time leftover, you can watch Encanto again or work on your Animal Crossing island. Sometimes the only way to get writing done is to be honest with ourselves about what we really want to do versus what we need to do, in this case, need being spending time writing.
3) Try Hard-Scheduling Your Writing Time
During some rough patches, I've had luck hard-scheduling my writing time and keeping it up like an appointment that can't be cancelled. Treating it that way, both in terms of personal priority and prioritizing it with others, makes it a little easier to stick with sometimes. Looking at your free time again, pick an hour (or two, or three) each day--all the better if you can do the same hour each day--and commit to writing during that time. When you get to that time every day, get your butt in the chair and write no matter what.
4) Find the Quiet Time in Your Day
As busy as our days might be, you probably have some quiet time during the day. It might be in the morning when you wake up, or maybe right before you go to bed. It might be the hour between when you get home from school or work, and family members or roommates get home from school or work. It could even be your lunch break, your commute on public transportation, or maybe a gap between classes. If you can find that patch of quiet time during your day, find a way to seize it and write. Even if you only write for 15 or 20 minutes, doing that every day (or most days) will get you moving forward on your story.
5) Honestly, Just Do It. Or, Maybe Don't...
For all of the above, and all the times one of the above has worked well for me, one thing I've learned about myself is this:
I'm just making excuses...
Sure, there always seems to be more "important" things to do, but at the end of the day, most of those things aren't actually that important. They're things I choose to do instead of writing. Why? Well, there can be a number of reasons. It could be because writing is hard, and sometimes it's easier to clean or do laundry than to sit down and flesh out a character or work on a difficult plotting problem. It could be because I'm not in the mood to write, or because my mental well being isn't in a good place for writing. It could just be that I'm choosing to do other things besides writing for no particular reason.
So, try just sitting down... right now... shut down Tumblr, turn off Netflix, put your phone on vibrate, ask anyone you live with not to bother you for a bit, and just start writing. Right now. Read through the last few paragraphs that you wrote, and go for there. Or, if you're plotting, look at the last bit you plotted out, and move forward.
Or, maybe this is the moment where you realize you're not working on your story because you've lost interest in it, or maybe you have no idea where the plot is going. Or maybe your heart and/or brain just aren't in a good place, and you have to accept that right now isn't a good time to worry about writing--but things will get better. You can try again next week.
If you think something about yourself or your project is what's holding you back, try having a look at my Motivation master list of posts. See if you can troubleshoot the problem. Otherwise, like I said, you can try again next week. You'll get there, I promise!
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!
Find answers fast on my Master List of Top Posts
Go to ko-fi.com/wqa to buy me coffee or see my commissions!
romaincrisis
gracieabrams
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
stormborns
germansingergirl
amandla
