How to Make Time to Write (YOUR Answers)

Recently, we asked listeners to share how they make time to write … and the feedback was very interesting! On this podcast, Chris and Gena talk about their favorite answers on how YOU make sure you write on a regular basis – no matter what.

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Transcription:

[00:00:13].870] - Chris
Hey, welcome to the Writing Momentum podcast. I'm Christopher Maselli. And with me is Gena Maselli. How are you?

[00:00:24].000] - Gena
Hi, everybody. I'm doing well.

[00:00:26].040] - Chris
All right. Well, we've had some fun recording these, and people have actually been responding to a lot of these and letting us know their thoughts. And that's something we're going to go over today. The other day by email we pitched out this question of how do you make time to write? Right? Because we all need to have time to write. And that's got to be one of the biggest challenges I think a lot of us face is how do we just find time to get our writing done right? And so we put a couple of suggestions out there, but then we got a flood of email back of people saying, hey, here's some ideas of things we like to do. And so we have selected some of our favorite answers and thought we'd just share those with everyone here and maybe give a few thoughts of our own with each one. So, Gena, you want to start us off? How do you find time to write is the question we asked. And what do people say?

[00:01:17].790] - Gena
Well, we got this one from Robin, and I thought this was great. She said she finds time to write, or she has found that if she writes earlier in the day, she's more likely to get it done. So if she's working on another project, she will start writing her own work first. And she writes for about 3 hours. So she'll start every day by 8:30, although she admits that she often gets started by 7:30 and she'll write for 3 hours, so she's done by noon. So the most important thing of her day, which is finishing her own writing, gets done first.

[00:01:55].970] - Chris
I think that's key is working on our own material first because it's so easy, especially when you've got clients to put everyone else first and put their projects first. But if we put our stuff first, then what we find is we have a greater kind of satisfaction in life. Right. Because we feel like we're finishing those things that are important.

[00:02:15].850] - Gena
Well. And I think this also goes to getting that satisfaction. But also the piece that comes with knowing that what is most important to you has been finished. So I'm sure that once that is done by noon, that she has this sense of accomplishment for her day. Like her day is fulfilled. Her day is working towards her goal. She's got that sense. And so that feeling or that angst that it comes with not feeling like you're working towards your goal is not there.

[00:02:52].390] - Chris
Yeah, that's good. So definitely work on your stuff. First, Christy responded and she said, you know what works for me? Just getting my butt in the chair. And then she went on to say she uses a notepad on her phone and a voice recorder to write a lot. She said it really helps her jump start since she can talk faster than her fingers can tap those keys. And I thought that was really good because sometimes it's easy to use the excuse of, well, I'm running around so much or I'm out and I can't seem to get things done. But you know what? You can make the most of every opportunity. If you take your phone with you, you've got something that you can write in. I know of someone who wrote an entire book on their phone just tapping with their thumbs. Right. Which is crazy to me. Like I just can't even imagine. But people do it. People find a way. And we know someone else. We know a very prolific author who sits and records all of her entire text. She'll sit in her car while her son is at soccer games, and she'll talk into her voice recorder and get everything recorded to her phone and then later transcribe it.

[00:04:01].140] - Chris
All right.

[00:04:01].880] - Gena
Well, that particular author has admitted to us that the first time she did it, it was a bit of a mess. But as she has done it more and more, she has been able to write more clearly and succinctly by recording it into her recorder. And I know Christy, we know Christy personally. And she has even mentioned that she will keep her phone by her bed so that if she wakes up in the middle of the night with an idea, she always has it. So she keeps it with her regularly and has it there as a tool to help her record those random thoughts of, oh, I can do this, and I can do that. And I will say Christy is a nonfiction writer, but the other person that we're talking about is a novelist. So it works for nonfiction and for fiction.

[00:04:49].850] - Chris
Yeah, that's right. That's right. Who came in next?

[00:04:52].460] - Gena
Next is Jean. And Jean said she writes first before she gets into the clutter of her day. And she admits that it's taken her years to figure this out. But if she kind of opens email, starts scrolling through social media, at least that's what I'm assuming, then she can get taken over by all these other things. And so she makes sure that she starts with her stuff first. But she doesn't deal with the other clutter of the day is what she calls it.

[00:05:27].370] - Chris
That seems to be a recurring theme with a lot of these answers is that they write first. Right. And a lot of times early in the morning because that's the only time to get the writing done and get it done writing well. So that's something to keep in mind if you're having trouble writing is it worth to wake up a little bit earlier and right before the rest of the house wakes up, before those demands of life start coming in, before it's even time to do anything else? Can you spare that time? Can you make that time to go ahead and get writing done? All right. So the next one came in from Cindy. Cindy said, well, I don't have anything Earth shattering here, but just scheduling the writing time and making it my job for the day is my way. And so this is a technique called time blocking, where you'll take and you'll block out time. You'll actually put it on your calendar each and every day to make sure you get it done. You make an appointment essentially with yourself. And this is something I really like and I like doing this sometimes myself where I say, okay, my day is full.

[00:06:36].500] - Chris
Right. I'm doing all kinds of stuff for other people. But can I go ahead and schedule an hour somewhere where I just work on my own material, where I say, I'm going to put that again, putting it first. Right. And that doesn't mean in this case, first in the day, but first in priority over just allowing that time to dissipate before you?

[00:06:57].430] - Gena
Well, for me, I will plan out my week. So Sundays are my day to plan out my coming week. And I will make sure as I'm thinking about my week, that I am blocking out that time. So while some people might do it at the beginning of their day, I do it at the beginning of my week to make sure that I get it in there and so that I can see the week at a glance and see, okay, I'm going to be able to write for this many hours this week.

[00:07:23].620] - Chris
Yeah, we've heard it said before that if you want to see what's important to someone, just look at their calendar. Right. And so you want to have your writing on your calendar, if that's important to you, and I encourage you to try it. You might be surprised to see that when you block out time on your calendar, especially if you have a family calendar and other family members are also blocking in time on that calendar, then a lot of times they'll give you that respect of having that time to yourself because they see it's like an appointment.

[00:07:49].490] - Gena
Definitely. Well, next comes from Morgan, and she is an early riser. I love this. She wakes up around 04:50 A.m. And while she works out for 15 minutes and then she journals using a pen and paper. And I think this is a great thing as well. So she does not just rely on opening her computer, especially if you're not a morning person. It might be a struggle to just jump on your computer right away. But she grabs a pen and paper and she journals, which is an important part of the writing process, too, and just getting those creative juices flowing.

[00:08:25].810] - Chris
Have you ever heard of that technique called morning pages? I haven't. There's a popular book out that talks about doing morning pages, and it's essentially talks about every morning you wake up and one of the first things you do is write 750 words. So three pages of material. And that's a real doable technique if you start to get into that habit. Okay, I just have to do three pages or just 750 words. I can get it done every morning. And a lot of people like to do that long hand because it exercises, I think, other spaces in the brain. For me, my wrist gets hurt too much if I try to do it longhand. So typing is definitely the way for me. But if I type, especially in the morning, like, one thing I have to start off doing is you have to turn off the Internet, turn off all notifications. And our computers nowadays have ways that you can do that on a schedule. So you don't even have to manually go in and do it. You can just say, okay, go ahead and don't give me any notifications or connect to the Internet between this time and this time.

[00:09:27].090] - Chris
And that way you can wake up in the morning and do that writing without any interference.

[00:09:31].430] - Gena
Well, Chris, now is that part of just within every computer, or is there a software that you use for that?

[00:09:37].980] - Chris
It's both. So I can't speak to PCs, but I know on the Mac they have where you can set schedules of focus time is what they call it and you can schedule what apps will work during that time and what notifications will and won't be received during that time. But there are also other apps, like there's an app called Focus that will allow you to actually schedule that into and that's for both PC and Mac. So, yeah, just look around if you're interested in that sort of thing. You can definitely find a way to put things on a schedule. All right. And so the last one is from Gena and same name. Wait, this is yours, isn't it?

[00:10:16].410] - Gena
This is mine. I figured I might as well jump in on the conversation, too.

[00:10:20].400] - Chris
Well, I'm going to read it. It says that Gena here says I pre-planned my week, which you said a little bit earlier right from the get go, you know, when your butt is going to be in the chair. And then I think that's good. But the second one we haven't covered yet, you say that you hired a coach to keep you accountable, and that works like a charm. So why don't you talk a little bit about that?

[00:10:40].360] - Gena
Yeah. I have started wanting to expand my writing and work with learn more about fiction writing. Long form fiction writing, writing a book. And so I've been trying to do it for myself for a long time and it was just still not getting done, was getting too distracted with other things. So I started working with a coach and it's helped me a couple of ways. One, I've been learning that I have to learn that style of writing, but also it helps keep me accountable. I know that at least two days before she and I are going to meet, I need to send her so many pages. I have that deadline. And Chris and I have talked before that deadlines are such an amazing thing for breaking through writer's block or just getting writing regularly. And I was meeting with her every other week and I am now going to start meeting with her weekly so that I am forcing myself to make that time for my own writing. And really, I'm doing that for myself because I have discovered that it is so easy for me one to get distracted. But also I have that mommy guilt sometimes where I feel like I need to be giving towards my family or towards our kids, towards Chris, towards our home, and just always feeling like those other things are more important than my own writing.

[00:12:13].880] - Gena
And I really had this kind of Eureka moment about a month ago where I thought to make time for my own for what is it really important to me, I need to do that so that I keep myself motivated and keep myself energized as well.

[00:12:34].080] - Chris
Yeah, that's good. I think accountability is that has become huge in our lives for getting things done, whether it is creating courses or getting writing done or even getting things done for clients. We have found that by joining Masterminds and joining together other people online to get writing done, it's just made a huge difference. And so I really encourage everyone to look for accountability in some way. Whether it's with someone else in your household or a good friend or someone even who's a stranger, it can really help you.

[00:13:09].860] - Gena
Okay, so let me recap this. What we talked about today, we talked about one getting up earlier in the day and really working on your writing first thing before you get into any other projects or any other assignments, just making sure that first thing in the morning you are working on what is most important to you. Next, we talked about using a notepad and using a voice recorder, getting those thoughts down, maybe even trying to write your book by voice first and then having it transcribed and editing from that transcription. Another is to close out the clutter of the day. Don't even get on social media or get on email or any of that until you have gotten your work done. So really and Chris is even talking talked about using focus type apps for that. Or even if you're on a Mac, you can go ahead and put that in your computer and schedule that for yourself and create that focus time and then also scheduling in writing, either looking daily at the time that you have and how you can schedule that time for your writing. But also like for me, scheduling out your week, maybe looking ahead and saying, okay, this week these are the times that I'm going to set aside for writing so that you always just have that in mind.

[00:14:42].060] - Gena
And then another one is maybe waking up early and using pen and paper and doing your pen and paper first and kind of getting those creative juices flowing. Some people really will work better with pen and paper to begin, which then you can maybe type into your computer and maybe that can be a jump off point for something more. And then mine was getting accountability. I have found a really great coach that I'm working with and not only does it she trained me in learning this new genre, but she's also a great I now have a deadline. I now have a deadline to get my work done by that time. So there you go, Chris.

[00:15:23].960] - Chris
Very good. Well, we just want to thank you all again for listening to The Writing Momentum podcast. We hope that this is something that can help to keep you accountable too, because we all need to have things like this that encourage us and that's part of the reason we make this podcast. If you haven't already, please rate the podcast and review it and subscribe to it so you get notified every time a new podcast comes out. And if you have a friend who you think might benefit from this podcast, please forward the link to them because that's how we can grow and just even help more writers. Because as far as we're concerned, we are all in this together and we all need to help build each other's writing momentum.