On a trip to New Orleans years ago, my husband and I sat in a bar waiting for the live music to start. My husband and I are both Type A people who like routine and schedules and having a plan. We’d been traveling all day and I was only half-hearted interested in the live show, so I was probably not being my most gracious self. Thirty minutes after the show was scheduled to start, Hubs asked a waiter when we could expect it to begin, and the waiter said, “Time is a human construct.” and then disappeared. Forget about it Jake, it’s New Orleans.
We use this phrase a lot in our house regarding when things get off schedule. It helps us Type A’s to remember that not everything runs on our timeframe.
The concept of when things should start, stop, restart or how long they should last are a human construct – these invisible and unspoken rules that people have. How late is late? How many days does it take to form a habit? How long should it take to write a novel? How much time should it take to read a blog post. Often it’s based on statistics and surveys and other items of measurement created by humans.
So when people say, “I don’t have the time.” to do something–like write a novel, a collection of poems, or a screenplay–it’s usually based on a person’s perception with time.
More than once I have listened to self-help personas explain to me how people have the capacity to expand and shrink time just by sheer will. I don’t completely buy it. It seems like a lot of it rests on the concept of how time seems to go by slower when we’re bored and faster when we are having fun. I know that when a person is in a flow state, all other responsibilities melt away – even things like food and the need to go to the bathroom. More than anything, I think when someone is doing something that excites them, they will make the time for it.
The challenge is not making time for it, it’s living with the guilt of putting everything else to the side.
I’m a parent. I have a husband. I have a teaching job. And I manage my indie publishing business. All of these things means I have responsibilities and things that are out of my control. If one of my kids gets sick, my husband has to travel for work, or if all of a sudden I’m having problems with my website, I have to adjust my whole day.
When I was younger, I used to hear other people describe how they spend their time, and I would thing both, “Ugh, that sounds horrible” and also, “what’s wrong with me that I don’t spend my time that way.” Other people volunteer for their child’s school, charities, or churches. Other people have dinner out with family and friends every night of the week. Other people run their kids to sporting events multiple nights a week. Other people are scheduling professional photo shoots for holiday cards. Other people are getting requests from friends to do things like: make a birthday cake for a friend’s party, help them learn how to knit or sew a Halloween costume, shop for a dress for a formal event, go to weddings, babysit their kids, go to baby showers, or spend the day floating on someone’s boat at the lake. None of these things sounded particularly fun to me. All of it sounded like work. But the fact that they were asked to do something by someone else made me think, “Wow. Those people must be so loved to be in such demand.”
It’s this virtue of busy-ness and popularity. The busier you are–the more in demand you are–the better of a person you are. The fact is that the reason people didn’t ask me to do those things is because I always say no, thank you. Because I didn’t really want to do those things. I like being alone in my homespace with my kids. I don’t like being at social gatherings for forced merriment. I’d much rather people come over to my space and let me cook for them. Which is usually what I do.
And let’s be honest, if our time is not filled, we will find a way to fill it. We get to choose how we fill out time.
How do I make time to write?
I schedule it knowing that it’s just a suggestion. Things happen and I have to be flexible. Again, if a kid needs to be rushed to urgent care because of a stomach bug, sometimes I have to be the one to do it. Yes, my husband is perfectly capable. He’s a five tool player. But if he’s litigating in front of a full courtroom and I’m sitting in my studio in my sweats, then it’s gonna need to be me. But I can’t just leave the time open “just in case.” What would end up happening is I would look at an open block of time, and then occupy myself with other tasks, as if waiting for someone to distract me. So I schedule the time, I show up to work, and I get accomplished what I can in that time.
I don’t block off full days or full weekends. I block of 15 minutes to one hour at a time. What I have found is I am not as productive if I set aside a whole day, because I keep thinking, “Why rush? I have all day!” I linger over my coffee, I straighten my desk, I painstakingly search for the right song, the right background TV, the right soundscape. And then by the time I start writing, it’s 3pm in the afternoon. Personally, if I have an hour to get something down between teaching, I am far more productive because I’m on the clock. I end the hour feeling excited about when I accomplished and looking forward to when I can do it again.
I don’t carry a lot of guilt about choosing writing over other things, because I make time for the other things that are important to me as well. One night a week, I have a date night with my husband. One night a week, I have a games night with my kids. I shut down at 5 pm, so we have dinner together every night. We go on vacations. We celebrate birthdays. We shut down around the holidays for hibernation time before the new year begins. I don’t feel like I am sacrificing anything.
I don’t waste time shopping in person. If shopping is your hobby, this tip isn’t for you. When grocery delivery became a thing, it was as if my prayers had been answered. Shopping is a time suck. I don’t need to contemplate what I want and need and I don’t get excited about a bargain. That’s my husband’s domain. I know what I need: a pound of chicken tenders, a bag of golden potatoes, a container of stock, carrots, celery, garlic. That’s soup for dinner. So I let someone else shop for it. The times I find myself wandering around Costco, TJ Max or Target, it’s because I know I’m avoiding responsibilities or just need a break. When I am on my grind, I will shop on the Target app and do a drive up to get the things I need.
I’ve learned to be a manager and not a martyr. This was a tough decision because I am a codependent. For most of my adult life I would give, and give, and give, and then flip the switch and be mad at everyone for not appreciating how much I have given them completely unprompted. I had to stop doing this because it is an exhausting pattern and an excuse to push people away. I was trying to do and be everything to everyone because I felt like that was my duty. Where I would get most hung up (and maybe sometimes still do) is on the cleanliness of my house. I want to live in one of those aspirational but not at all sustainable CleanTok homes where the counters are always clear and clean. But I have children and other responsibilities. For a ling time, I felt so guilty for my “filthy” home. Then I told Hubs, “Hey. I have two jobs and do not have time to keep our house clean. Find us people who will do that for us!” Now we have people who come in and vacuum, mop, scrub, and dust every two weeks. I come home to a space that smells like Fabulosa and I’m instantly at ease. When I’m a manager, I delegate, assign, and solve problems. The things that need to get done get done and I have more time for what I want to do.
But these are all practical suggestions that most people might feel are easy to dismiss. The way I live my life is how I live my life. Your Writers Glow Up is your own, and you get to choose how your life works for you.
But I will offer these suggestions to keep your writing time worth any sacrifice you might think you are making.
Don’t turn art into work. This applies to writing, exercising, eating right, or any other choice you make with the hope that it will change your life. Once something becomes a responsibility, it becomes work. The second something becomes work, it loses it’s joy. When I entered grad school, all my fiction and nonfiction became deliverables, and that turned it into work. So when I would get bogged down with the responsibilities of deadlines, I would need a fun reset to remind me that I love what I do. I would adorn my writing pad with cartoon tigers or unicorns. I would start every writing session with a piece of dark chocolate. I brought in things for my writing space that were pink, gold, or polka dot – colors and textures that translated to joy for me. I had to make it fun and looking at unicorns reminded me that what I was doing couldn’t be so high stakes, I mean… it had a unicorn sticker on it.
Be in the moment. Often what kills projects is skipping ahead to the end: asking yourself that nagging question of “What are you going to do with this when you’re done?” or worse, “Do you really think you’re going to finish this… give up now.” Go ahead and crush that little killjoy; banish it from your brain. You will decide what you will do when you are finished after you finish it. Instead, relish in the parts of the process that bring you joy. I was telling students that I love the beginning of a new project because it feels like confetti cannons shooting off in my brain. I like the drag of the pen across paper. I love the feeling of the keys under my fingertips. I love anticipating what my characters will do next. Not what I’m going to do next. In the moment of writing – when in the flow of writing – that’s the good stuff.
Create a ritual. Sometimes the ritual can be as simple as lighting a candle, pouring a glass of wine, or putting on your “thinking hoodie”. The ritual tells your brain, it’s time to be creative. By repeating the ritual over and over again, it gives a purpose to your time and space. You are honoring the creative space you have created.
Remember that when you love what you do, you will want to spend more time with it. Everything else will feel like things that are keeping you from doing what you want to do. And that’s when your inner surly teen will start yelling at everyone. You are allowed choose how you spend your time. Take your work breaks alone with your notebook. Give the coworker who always wants to sit in your office and complain a hug and walk them back to their own space. Let someone else volunteer to lead that subcommittee. Tell the person rounding up volunteers that you can’t participate this year. Turn off your notifications and turn up your headphones. Or don’t. Maybe you’d rather assess your social media time, your shopping time, or your Netflix time. But you get to decide. Because it’s your life.
XOXO,
B.
Looking for more advice on boosting your productivity? Check out my online course, “This is what a Writer Looks Like.”
Also, mark your calendars for my new novel, Pretty Girls Get Away with Murder, which will be released on March 14. It’ll be here before we know it! Go ahead a Pre-order to reserve your copy. Readers who want a signed physical copy should order through my website.
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