Unless you happen to be a full-time author who earns their main income from writing, chances are you have to fit your creative endeavours in around your day job(s). This can be a tricky thing to manage. As much as writing can be your "love" job, the realities of everyday life and having bills to pay can mean that it gets relegated to the end of the line when it comes down to what you put your time and energy into.
While managing my time with my day jobs, I have found it is best to take the "little and often" approach to writing. If I tell myself I will spend all day Saturday writing, this can be tricky if I have other plans. As much as I want to go out with friends or do something else I enjoy, I experience a level of guilt that I will not be at home writing to meet a deadline I've set myself. On the other hand if I tell myself I will snatch four hours over the week in whatever chunks I can grab them, that feels like a much more manageable target and does not overly restrict my spare time. It could mean, for example, that I would get up early on Saturday and write for two hours before doing whatever else I have planned. Or that I will spend an hour on Sunday afternoon doing some editing after I've caught up with my chores or watched a movie.
While managing my time with my day jobs, I have found it is best to take the "little and often" approach to writing. If I tell myself I will spend all day Saturday writing, this can be tricky if I have other plans. As much as I want to go out with friends or do something else I enjoy, I experience a level of guilt that I will not be at home writing to meet a deadline I've set myself. On the other hand if I tell myself I will snatch four hours over the week in whatever chunks I can grab them, that feels like a much more manageable target and does not overly restrict my spare time. It could mean, for example, that I would get up early on Saturday and write for two hours before doing whatever else I have planned. Or that I will spend an hour on Sunday afternoon doing some editing after I've caught up with my chores or watched a movie.
While being "in the zone" with writing is a great place to be, it doesn't often happen. A lot of what we do is pushing through the apathy we may feel or the lack of inspiration. But these "little and often" efforts add up. If your target is to write five hours per week, that is less than an hour a day and that can be further broken down into fifteen or thirty minute pieces to suit your lifestyle. Of course, if you can, an extra hour or two or if it's pouring rain and you can spend the whole weekend working on your novel, that's a bonus. But what gets a book written is those consistent little and often efforts that add up over time.
Sometimes it feels like you need some magical approach to increase your writing productivity, but, like many things in life, the answer lies in the tried and true wisdom gathered over human history. If you keep working away at something you will get there in time - how you split that time up can vary but there is no magic shortcut and you will be much more likely to stick to a plan than is achievable rather than an unrealistic target that is generally unsustainable.
Sometimes it feels like you need some magical approach to increase your writing productivity, but, like many things in life, the answer lies in the tried and true wisdom gathered over human history. If you keep working away at something you will get there in time - how you split that time up can vary but there is no magic shortcut and you will be much more likely to stick to a plan than is achievable rather than an unrealistic target that is generally unsustainable.
