Words on a page

Whether writing is your main occupation or a sideline, you invariably run into a situation in which you don’t have enough time to write what you want. If, like me, you run into this situation more often than you care to admit, then you definitely need to make some changes.

Those changes aren’t incredibly difficult to make. By making those changes, you’ll free up the time and energy that you need to get that little bit of extra writing done.

My situation

I write for a living (although you’ve probably already know that). My day job, if you want to slap that tag on it, is partner in a technical communication firm. But I also write articles, contribute to three blogs including this one, and give the occasional presentation or talk.

On top of that, I’ve got a family and a social life that eats into whatever spare time I might use to write. Over the last 15 months or so, a lot of that has taken its toll on my writing. Or, at the very least, the writing that I’ve wanted (and want) to do.

Here are some of the changes that I’ve made in response to those 15 months, changes that are making time for me to write what I want to write.

Use your time effectively

I’ve written at length in this space about time and task management. I won’t repeat my ideas here.

Something that I have been focusing on lately is effectively using dead or idle time to write, outline what I want to write, or do research. Lunch hours (or however long you have for the midday meal) are great for that. In between bites and sips, or after you’ve finished eating, try putting ideas and words and sentence on paper or on screen.

You can also try getting up a half hour or hour earlier each morning, and/or turning in 30 to 60 minutes later each night. For some, that’s a quiet time that allows them to let their thoughts roam a little more freely.

What other times of the day are there? If you take transit, use your commute to do a bit of writing — I carry a Moleskine notebook with me at all times just for that. Any breaks you take during the day give you an opportunity to do a short burst of work.

Think you can’t get much done in that amount of time? Think again.

Go on a low-info diet

In a previous post, I talked about how we can be innudated with information and how much of that information is irrelevant or duplicated. Why not just cut some, or most, of it out?

Chances are you don’t need that much information flowing into your brain. So, take a close look at what you’re reading and watching. Think seriously about how often you’re reading and watching, and what you’re getting out of it. Then, dump whatever’s not as interesting or useful as you thought it would be. The time that you normally would have spent either reading and watching, or combing through, all that material is time that you can devote to writing or outlining.

What happens if you need more information for something that you’re writing. Don’t forget the word research. It comes in handy at times like that.

Do tasks in batches

Maybe you want to write a bunch of blog posts or a set of short articles. Maybe you need to do research for a couple of essays. Or perhaps you want to find the right pieces of stock photography to go with whatever it is you’re writing.

Try doing a bunch of similar tasks in batches. With blog posts or short articles, for example, maybe you’ve got all the research done. You might even have outlines ready. That’s more than half the work already done. Start your word processor or text editor and start writing. Move from one piece to another. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you can do things, and how much you can get done.

If you want to learn more about batching, check out Leo Babauta’s book The Power of Less.

Do it in bits and pieces

This is one chunk of advice that I haven’t yet started to take to heart. The more I think about it, though, it makes sense. Especially for those longer pet projects (of which I have a few).

What’s this all about? Try setting aside 20 or 30 minutes each day to bang out a few hundred words on that project. Use a timer to keep yourself within that time limit. Stop writing, even if you’re in mid sentence, when the timer goes off.

You might not get a lot done in one sitting or even two. But over the space of a month, you’ll have several thousand — if not tens of thousands — of words. Think of it as compound interest, with words instead of money.

Am I out of the woods yet?

Definitely not. There are days when I give into a flagging level of energy and do little or nothing. There are other days when the amount of other work on my schedule preculdes me from doing anything else. The rest of the time? It still can be fairly difficult to make the time to write what I want to write. But I still make the effort. Sooner rather than later, it will get easier and I’ll be writing more than ever.

Are you in a situation like this? If so, how do you deal with it? Feel free to leave a comment.

Photo credit: Kevin_P from morguefile.com

Related posts:

1. Don’t think about it, write it!
2. Write everything as if writing for the Web
3. More on making the time to write

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under advice, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.