Put writing on the calendar. Multiple people have said this to me, and it doesn’t work at all. That is to say, it hasn’t worked at all so far. I want it to work because I want writing to be my job, but here’s what’s really happened:
- One day, put an appointment on my calendar that says “Write” from 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM, for example
- 10 o’clock comes around and I’m in the middle of doing something else… so I keep doing it
- 5:30 comes around and I never did go and write
- Well, that didn’t work
- Don’t try it again for a few months
Writing out the above list quickly unearths some problems. First, there’s the problem of giving up on something when it doesn’t work the first time, a corollary or reflection of the pursuit of novelty, where I’m more likely to try some new thing (or, let’s be honest, try nothing) when I don’t see immediate success. But I’ve been building a writing habit for the last month or so quite successfully: writing every day, at least a little, usually empowered by getting up early and writing before I do anything else.
There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to show up somewhere at a specific time and do specific things; after all, I remained gainfully employed for about fifteen years before deciding to strike out on my own.
Some ideas for making the time-blocking approach more successful:
- Block out a whole week at a time (that is, a block at the same time every day)
- If you miss one block or don’t start at quite the right time, don’t worry: just try again the next day
- I bet you’ll sit down at the given time at least one day out of that week
- Have a preparation ritual (h/t Atomic Habits, again); if you know you are going to sit down at 10 AM, don’t wait until 10 AM to stop whatever you were previously doing. Realize you have to stop at, say 9:50 or 9:45
- Wrap up whatever it is you’re doing as best you can, maybe that’s just putting the iPad down or hitting the pause button
- Do whatever preparations you need to do to start writing at 10
- So, if you want something on your desk to drink, get it now
- Go to the bathroom, damn you
- Even if you don’t want either of the above things, do something consistent to signal to yourself that you’re shifting into writing mode
- Even if it seems goofy
- So making a cup of tea or some favourite beverage isn’t a bad idea; associate the anticipation of mmm a cup of coffee with sitting down to write
- I’d argue part of my problem right now with writing before breakfast is, my anticipation centres on ceasing to write so I can make coffee…
- I’m 100% in on the idea of having, like, a writing hat or writing sweater, or something you change about your environment (lighting) that you put on or do to say it’s writing time
- Now when your calendar appointment rolls around, you’re ready to start immediately
- And, as experience shows me over and over again, starting is the toughest part. Sometimes continuing is tough, sure, but even if you have to switch away from the thing you want to work on and just free-write, it’s worth it to have spent the time making the words come out
- Come to think of it this is the same way you treat any calendar appointment with an external party
- If you have a meeting in the conference room, you gather your notebook and lock your desktop and maybe get another coffee with minutes to spare: you don’t start doing that at the meeting time, because then you’ll be late
- If you have a date across town you backtrack and think, ok, I want to be there a few minutes early, the travel time is about forty minutes, so I want to leave the house no later than 5:00, so I need to start getting ready at 4:00…
- So another big part of this is the fact that, sadly, tragically, it’s much easier to break a commitment to ourselves than it is to break a commitment to others
- There are things you can do here, like ‘accountability partners’ where you tell someone else you’ll do a thing at a certain time, but admittedly this isn’t something I’ve tried a lot, it’s another thing I kind of bailed on when it didn’t work great right away…
I hope something in that brain-dump is helpful! To me, as much as to you… 😉
