Planning Your Time: A Community Workshop

Great topic! I have absolutely no time in my life. I told my dh last week, I would pay serious money if I someone could figure out how to give me a 30-hour day. But even then, I probably wouldn't have time to get everything done. I have three kids, one who is a very busy 5, one who is 10 with special needs and a teenager with an insane extracurricular schedule and I feel like my time for myself is measured in nanoseconds. Here are a few things I do to find time to write ...

1) Get away from the house!!! My 5 year old goes to preschool two mornings a week and I find I have to leave if I want to get anything productive accomplished. Otherwise, I get too busy checking email, answering 45-minute phone calls from my Mom, doing laundry, etc. My best solution is to take my Alphasmart and iPod with a great writing playlist and drive somewhere, anyway. Even the Wal-Mart parking lot will do in a pinch <g>.

 2) Organize the rest of your life as much as you can so you can squeeze out more time for writing. Freezer cooking is my best friend. I cook many meals at a time so there's always something good for dinner in the freezer when I'm on deadline and just don't have time to think about it.

3) Set a timer. This works wonders.  I mostly work when my kids are in bed and sometimes I'm so exhausted I just can't bear the idea of sitting down. So I tell myself I'll work for only 30 minutes and then I can sleep. But usually when that 30 minutes are up, I'm so into the story that I have to keep going. I also use that trick for surfing or checking email (only I set it for 10 minutes and have to stop when the timer goes off).

 4) Along with #3, learn to write in spurts. Yes, I would love three or four hours of uninterrupted writing time. Unfortunately, I never, ever get that. But I might be able to squeak out thirty minutes at the kitchen table while my 5 year old watches Yo Gabba Gabba. In thirty minutes, I can write two or three pages or do a character interview or figure out a sticky plot situation. Do that a couple times a day and then throw in a couple more hours at night and you can make serious headway on a book.

5) Remember what comes first. In my case, that's my family. That's just the reality of it. I have a painted sign in my office that says "Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life." It helps keep things in perspective for me.

 Hope that helps :)

RaeAnne

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I have absolutely none of the excuses Rae & Dee have. My kids are way grown (one of them married and out of the house). The only "kid" that consumes my time is my horse.

So, my big problem is procrastination when I should be working. In fact, the more time I have in the day (i.e., a day with no appointments, no plans to ride, I'm home all day), the worse I am at finding a million things to do besides write. Who knew paying bills would be so fascinating?

I feel like such a slug when this happens. But sometimes the thought of settling down to write just terrifies me. I'm so afraid I'm going to write something awful. Really dopey, I know--you'd think after 16 books I'd have more confidence in myself.

Then I read about you all who still have little ankle-biters at home and have to squeeze your writing time in between their care and I'm a bit ashamed of myself. I need someone to stand by my desk to crack a whip. Preferably someone tall and hunky, wearing nothing but a loincloth. I'm sure my hubby wouldn't mind. It would be a tax-deductible writing expense, right?

Karen

Actually, I used to get tons of writing done away from the house. When I was homeschooling my younger son, I would take him to county-sponsored classes, then would go over to one of the local restaurants to work and have a bite to eat. It's kind of fun to go to those same restaurants now and think, "Hey, I wrote several chapters of UNFORGETTABLE here."

Maybe that's the trick for me--take my laptop with me and work somewhere away from the very addictive Internet.

Karen (an admitted e-mail-aholic)

Add me to the procrastinators...

I find that getting up an hour earlier than the rest of the household helps. I tend to think about the book last thing before sleep and therefore do have ideas buzzing.

You do have to be willing to work in small snatches. Long drawn out blocks of time never work for me as someone always has some thing that needs to be done. I find making sure that I am working in snatches ofdead time helps as well. For example -- working while waiting for an appointment or whatever. And keeping a notebook close by.

Michelle S

Dee - I work as an accountant in a law office and am pretty busy.  I still find time for all of dd's activities, my GS troop and to write.  I have a one hour lunch so  I brown bag it and eat in 15 minutes and then write for 45 minutes.  I check the e-har boards on my breaks (with permission from employer). I carry a small tape recorder and when I am stuck waiting in line at the drive thru at the bank, or where ever, I'll record ideas and thoughts.

I am ruthless with maintaining a schedule of writing from 10 p.m. to midnight and then proof reading from 5:30 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. Monday thru Friday. 

I keep the truck stocked with tablets, pens, etc. so I can write in parking lots while waiting on dd.

But the hardest thing to do is deal with all of the visitors at the house.  It is grand central and so if folks stay too long, I apologize, tell them I need to mow, do laundry, etc., and invite them to tag along.  I keep to my schedule of getting the chores done do I can have quiet writing time.

Great thread.

I could totally do that with cookies!

Another question is, do most people break things up as they write? Or do they run into trouble because it's difficult to get the vibe back once they're pulled out of the story? 

Plans? What plans? I try to juggle everything, DH , the 3 kids, working fulltime and teaching other people kids (barely can control my own) and write, but it all comes down around me. I just do what can be done when I can. I think I function best in chaos.

I do try to make a plot outlines and write when time allows between breaks at work or on lunch break I put in a touch here and there. I have to say I am blessed because I have a writing partner who lives in Japan. We have different time zones. When she sleeps I write and when I sleep she writes. It is a great way to get in those 24 hours. HEHEHE

Cause I think you're a genius! Because my son is special needs, there's never been any real babysitting available. And with the twins, lol, no one will come that can hear. LOL! If I had that option, I'd be on it like white on rice!

Dee 

I read recently that Americans do 31 hours worth of stuff every 24 hours.  Between multi-tasking, prioritizing, and just-plain-ol' ignoring, we manage to squeeze a lot in!

BTW--I consider not cleaning the bathroom very often to be a major part of my time-management strategy. 

That is SOOOOO my strategy explanation now! I'm throwing in my dishes, too!

 I'm better at the crack of dawn, too. Someone unplugs my brain after 9pm.

The thing for me is the uncertainty of getting things done as my babies are unpredictable little things. But I'm proud to report I was up most of the night editing and hey, I finished!

Just another of those times when you steal the minutes you can get. Whee!

Dee 

but then I got deadlines, lol. I have mild OCD, but I'm also a mercenary cow. If I can earn, I can ignore the mess. (Actually, I had to learn to leave a mess for my son, because it was exacerbating his autism, but I feel better about a mess if I'm actively earning by leaving it.)

Now I clean to plot. :)

What do you all do to trigger writing?

Dee 

I'm afraid what it looks like, lol!

Though this does beg another question: How do you cope with NOT being able to write? It's hard to carve writing time out and when you set it aside, you start to look forward to it. Do you get cranky if something steals that time away? Do you get flat out mad? Or do you sigh and resign yourself to the loss?

Dee 

I'm a total night owl but unfortunately I also suffer from insomnia.  Most of the time the insomnia is manageable but writing too late into the evening is one of my triggers.  It's not always easy to turn off the creative flow.  My muse is moody and doesn't always understand my need to sleep especially now that I'm doing the 9 to 5 thing. 

Having said that I haven't written in, well, a while now.  I'm really digging the just doing a 1000 or so a words a day advice.  That's seems a lot more manageable with my current schedule.  When I was a stay at home mom I could write upwards of 15 pages a day, but I just don't have the time now.  I guess I can't expect the same productivity level now that I work full time.  

It's a shame so many of us feel we have to shove so many things into any given day.  Working, writing, kids, life, house cleaning, errands -- geez, it feels exhausting just typing it.  LOL  

And to conclude my long rambling post my house is typically a cluttered mess.  I totally hate it, but with teenage boys in and out all day, most days it's just easier to go into the other room and ignore it.  Although if I can't walk through a room without tripping over something I'm getting on someone's case.  Even us clutter freaks have to draw the line somewhere.