Alarms, snooze buttons and getting more hours in the day.
I need about another 6 hours in each day, you?
When the alarm went off this morning, I didn’t hit the snooze button. I just turned it off and went back to sleep.
Luckily, I woke back up.
So we were all rushed, but not late, and isn’t it hard getting back into a routine after having time off?
Especially when the mornings are dark and the rain is beating on the window, and you’re in that lovely dreamlike state between sleeping and waking.
Anyway, that’s what prompted me to write to you - about planning and routine and getting more hours in the day.
Because I have A LOT I want to work on this year and after going through my Writing Planner, I realized if I want to get it all done; I have to be doing stuff from the get-go. Like, today.
No taking a few weeks to gently ease myself in.
Nope, I need to hit word counts and goals by the end of this month.
And I’m guessing you’re the same.
You have writing goals, dreams and plans for the year.
An income to make from your stories, which is impossible if you haven’t got those stories written and ready to sell.
And probably, like me, a day job or commitments that you have to work around.
I can’t magically whip up a few more hours each day for you, but I can tell you about time-blocking and the beauty of constraints, which seem to help me hit my goals.
TIME BLOCKING
Cal Newport framed this idea, and it’s a simple and sure-fire way of making the most of every hour you have in your day.
Here’s how it works, and if you have my planner, you’ll see I designed the daily planning sheets for this in particular.
After you know what you want to achieve in each week, such as how many words you want written, how much content you need to create, etc. Take your day and divide it into hourly chunks.
Cross out all the time you’re at work, or doing the school run, or making meals etc. and then look at what hour blocks of time you have left.
For me, it looks like a couple of hours before work, a couple after and an hour in the middle around lunch time.
Write out what you’ll do in each of those hours and here’s the key: keep it to one specific task. Easy.
But the hard part is when you actually come to doing it. Be strict with yourself. Work at what you’ve planned in those hours and nothing else.
If you haven’t got to your word count by the end of the hour, or created your content, or written your newsletter or whatever, stop.
Whatever you haven’t got done, goes on the sheet for the next day.
Time block it in.
This works because instead of leaving the time you have open-ended, to do a bit of writing here, create some kind of content or maybe answer a few emails, you focus on one task.
It helps you prioritize and means you stop the mind-monkeys that ask you to juggle everything at the same time.
WORKING TO CONSTRAINTS
When doing my writing review of last year, I found that writing sprints worked best for me.
I got more done when I only had an finite amount of time to write in, than I did when I had, say, a full afternoon.
I think it was because I was forced to focus, I didn’t have the luxury of daydreaming out of the window or picking up my phone, I had to get that stuff done!
There was also something psychologically appealing about the urgency of it. Racing against the clock is a great motivator.
I knew that after an hour, it was over.
I wouldn’t have to keep going and that seemed to fuel my creativity, knowing that it wasn’t an endless time measured in when I achieved the goal.
The pomodoro technique is a time management tool that embraces this and one that I fully subscribe to. Writing sprints of 25 minutes works great for me.
So that’s how I’m tackling all of my writing projects this year. I’ll let you know if I find a new hack, or if I change things up.
What are you working on?
And if you’ve any questions, or productivity tips of your own, let me know in the comments :)