The most believable lies are the ones with a measure of truth in them. When we get the urge and inspiration to write, but we’ve already scheduled every minute of the day on other things, it’s quite feasible to say “I’ll do it tomorrow.” I mean, it’s not reasonable to leave work to go and write, or to blow off a friend to go and write, or to postpone a meeting to go and write.
Seriously, we’re busy people! It’s not that we don’t want to write. It’s just physically impossible because of all our other commitments. Tomorrow will just have to do.
Then we forget, or tomorrow gets filled with activities as well, and we say to ourselves, “Maybe over the weekend.”
Then the weekend comes and we’re tired, uninspired, and distracted by other things. So no writing…again. No worries, you’ll get to it tomorrow…or some day.
Guess what, just like the elusive pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, tomorrow and someday never come. They will always be somewhere ahead of you in the distance. What’s really happening is that a little voice inside of us is succumbing to our anxiety about writing, and it wants to protect us from the distress we feel is sure to come. So, it creates feasible excuses to give us a way out. And we take them. With heavy sighs of relief we dodge another bullet.
So how exactly do you get started when you’re working against yourself like this?
I’ll tell you what I did: set aside time for writing, give it a name, and honor it.
The problem with saying tomorrow or some day, is that those concepts are not specific. They are arbitrary spaces in time that have no fixed connections. When you set aside time for writing, state the day, the start time, and the duration.
When I decided to write, I set aside the time in my google calendar and I wrote it down in my schedule: 9 am to 11 am, Tuesday, June 12 – Write Article for Blog. (INSERT LINK)
Ok, so full confession here, I make lists and I schedule everything…and it has been working for me, so I encourage you to try it for yourself.
There are many activities vying for importance in life, and sometimes it’s difficult to choose which ones get to the top and which ones get done. Making lists and prioritizing help me keep track of things, but it is scheduling that really helps me get things done.
I don’t know about you, but I’m the forgetful sort. Writing things down creates something tangible I can get back to that keeps me focused.
In addition to setting a date, time, and what you’re working on, it’s also useful to set a target or a goal for the session. If you’re working on a book, then setting an achievable word count is useful. This, of course, would be part of an overall schedule that lets you set a target date for completion of your book.
For example, if your book is to be about 70,000 words and you average you can write about 2,000 words in a 3-hour session, then that gives you an idea of how many sessions you’ll need to complete that book. One estimate is 35 sessions, and you’ll also need to add in time for research and days when you write less than 2,000.
This means you can safely allocate 45 sessions to complete your first draft.
That kind of thinking gives you purpose and direction.
If you’re blogging, you can estimate perhaps two to three blogs per session, depending on the length and depth of your blogs. There’ll also be days for research and planning so that you’ll know what to write on when you sit at your computer.
If you’re a free spirit and you’re worried about the drawbacks of getting caught up in a schedule, don’t be afraid. The trick to not becoming a slave to a schedule is to be calm when unexpected things crop up.
You still have the flexibility to make snap decisions, move things around, and do what works for you. It took me a while to get the balance right, and I’m not sure I’m quite there yet. There are days when writing turns into research and word count doesn’t go up by much. But there are also days when word count shoots up due to dots being connected. So have a little patience, but keep plodding on.
I struggled with many of the lies on this countdown, and I postponed my writing for more than a decade (yes, there are projects going into double digits as I write this blog).
It’s only recently I decided to let go of the anxiety and just write. I changed my song from Tomorrow to Set It All Free (queue shameless movie reference for Sing).
In business and project management we’re told to make goals SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. When it comes to getting yourself off the couch and at your typewriter (metaphorically speaking for most of us), being SMART is also quite useful.
What we’ve discussed in this article fits completely into that SMART outline.
Specific – How many words are you aiming for today? What are you writing on? It’s not enough to simply have a “writing time” but you want to be specific about what you’re writing during each session. This should be decided ahead of time so that you can maximize on the actual writing time.
Measurable – Give a specific word count or objective. 2,000 words. 2 blog articles. Always set targets so that you can gauge your progress. And have compassion with yourself. Not all days will be 2,000 word days.
Attainable – Set word counts that are manageable for you. While it might be awesome to imagine writing 7,000 words a session, that is not achievable for most writers. Aim for something that can easily be accomplished so you can get dopamine from a job completed.
Relevant – It must be said. If you’re working on a novel, then writing a blog during your writing time isn’t going to help the novel get done. Schedule another time for your blog.
Time-bound – Schedule the beginning and end times of sessions, set target completion dates for the projects you’re working on, and be consistent with your efforts. When you schedule writing time, it’s useful to set aside the same days and times each week so that your brain gets into the habit of writing during the allocated sessions. That is the best way to train the writer in you.
So, stop thinking about what can be done tomorrow and get it together to start writing today, and every other day you can schedule.
As always, happy writing.
