Making Time

“I just can’t find the time to write.”

There. Right there, that’s your problem. You can’t find the time to write. You have to MAKE the time.

Before the Harry Potter fans start talking about Hermione and her Time-Turner, let me add that I’m not talking about magic.

I’m talking about planning.

The trick to writing every day is not too “find” the time. You can’t wait until a few idle hours suddenly materialize right in your path — because they never will.

The solution is to make the time, and fortunately there are time-management experts who can help us do just that.

It’s all in the planning

My favorite method of making the time to write is to use the “Unschedule,” as described in Neil Fiore’s book, The Now Habit. The Unschedule is a reverse-psychology tool that really works for a perfectionistic procrastinator like me. Normally, I will try to force myself to sit down and grind away — only to find my resistance to work is so great that suddenly I’m cleaning out my email inbox, or reading articles on social media, or watching videos on lace knitting in the Shetland Islands.

But with the Unschedule, my day starts with carefully planning in chunks of guilt-free play and social time as well as appointments, exercise and other activities. Only after my commitment to life and fun has been dialed into my day, do I figure out where the “work” can fit in.

This helps me by reminding me that there’s more to my life than just work — that I’m not failing if I’m not writing 24/7. And my time isn’t “wasted” if I’m not working on that project. Life is all about balance.

Furthermore, it somehow lightens the load for me — I get to write, as opposed to being made to write. With the Unschedule, I’m not considering the writing part of my day as work, and the rest as “fun stuff” that I can do afterwards.

Many writers do work well when they discipline themselves to write first, and do other activities later in the day. But that doesn’t work for me. When I try to force myself to sit butt in chair and hands on keyboard like a naughty schoolchild forbidden to play, not allowing myself to do anything but write until I reach some certain milestone, it’s no fun anymore.  I’m treating writing as if it’s some sort of punishment.

Fortunately, the Unschedule is not too complicated and it’s fun. If you’d like to try it yourself, you can download an Unschedule sheet from the author’s helpful website.

A good article on using the Unschedule was posted by the NJLifehacks duo, brothers Nils and Jonas Salzgeber . Check out the article for details on how to implement the Unschedule. 

More Help

Another person who gives good advice on how to make time is Laura Vanderkam.   I have followed her blog, Just a Minute, for a year or more.

I also like Julia Bickerstaff’s 100-day challenge over at the the Business Bakery. No matter what your goal might be, Julia’s daily inspirational messages and her step-by-step guidance really helps to get things done.

With all this advice, you’d think I’d be more productive than I actually am. But the key is to put all the good advice into action — and that’s the hard part.  This new series of Healthy Writer blog posts will help me stay accountable, and remind me of my goals as I put my new ideas into practice. 

I hope you’ll join me as I build what I hope will be a staircase to success.