Two Power Hacks to Find the Perfect Writing Routine

What is your specific life like?

Jay Sennett
Sep 5, 2018 · 3 min read
“person holding dual bell alarm clock reading at 12:14 o' clock” by Tristan Gassert on Unsplash

Kids and commuting and maybe a second-job eat into the time we have to write. Aging or terminally parents or other family members suck up more time than we ever thought possible.

Writing sometimes has to fit into our lives in ways that stretch us out so thin we feel transparent.

We must become masters of agility.

If you stay at home with young kids, many writers write when the kids nap or at play dates with friends, get up early or stay up late.

Same with the job.

Can you write on public transportation? During breaks at work? Dictate as you go for a lunch time walk?

The answers to these questions must arise from the specific conditions of your life.

Writers offer all kinds of advice on the internet. They give alluring suggestions about when, how and for how long to write, often based on their own experiences.

Their lives aren’t our lives. This is so super obvious. Yet we want to absolve ourselves of the difficult work of deciding for ourselves what suits us. We might have to say goodbye to a favorite television show or only visit social media once a week for ten minutes. We might have to say farewell to a long-time friend or annoying family member.

The allure of another’s plan seems so much easier. But without the work of figuring out our own schedules what can we do when this plan, the one we adopted unthinkingly, fails?

We don’t know how we use our time because we have no data about how we use the time we have in our own lives. The temptation then becomes to then give up.

Studying our own lives gives us options when everything goes to hell in a Fedex package. Time is the writer’s main currency.

When we adopt someone else’s schedule, we’ve not addressed the root problem, which is lack of knowledge about ourselves and what is important to us.

As we spend our time, so there are our values.

The answer to questions about kids or facebook or writing at lunch or before work or between visits to your mother in hospice need only work for you. Because you understand how everything works in your life, it will work for you. Chances are, too, you’ll be less inclined to try someone else’s routine since you know that they aren’t you.

If I sound condescending, I don’t mean to at all.

When I realized only I could construct the best writing routine for me I felt I had discovered my own version of fire. I took my personal power back and now look to the future. The nagging sense that maybe I’m doing it wrong disappeared.

I had been doing it wrong. Following another’s path without questioning how it suits me led to feelings of insecurity, a creeping sense that the whole thing would fall apart.

HACK: In the mind game that is writing, always ask yourself: how does this writer’s suggestion work for me, given where I am at right now, with the specific financial, time and physical resources I have.

HACK: Do a time study for a week. Laura Vanderkam offers the best strategies and advice for doing personal time studies. She offers a free time makeover guide at her website.


Jay Sennett

Written by

Author of creative nonfiction and fiction. Female to male transsexual. www.jaysennett.com

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