Lesson Four
Welcome back! In this lesson, you learn a few more tips on how to be a successful writer. Please read through the lesson and print it off if possible. When you have a hard copy of the lesson, you can highlight and make notes in the margins. That’s the best way to proceed through these lessons so that you can get the most out of them.
Tip 8: Determine When You are Most Productive
Most writers have different times of the day when they feel most productive. This may be early morning or late night. Alternatively, it may be in the early afternoon or late afternoon.
Writers must try to figure out such times, so they can do their best work and not be distracted all the time.
Determining when you are most productive also depends on whether you work full-time or part-time or whether you have young kids at home. In both cases, you may have a difficult time even finding time to write let alone finding your most productive writing time. If this is your situation, try to find a time when the kids are asleep. Arrange those times so that you can write.
If you work outside the home, this can be an added burden to finding your ideal time to write. By the time you come home from work, you may feel tired and frustrated. You may need to eat, rest, and regroup before you can start writing in order to be your best. If it gets too late, you won’t do your best writing.
So, how should you proceed in this case to be your best?
If you are working full-time or part-time look at the slots of time when you are not working. For instance, can you do a bit of preparatory work for your writing session in the evening during your lunch hour? Or can you go to the library or a cafe after work and write for a half an hour? Can you take a short nap when you get home from work and then write for an hour? Can you order a meal from a restaurant or pick up a rotisserie chicken from the take-out section of your grocery store so that you don’t have to worry about dinner? That way you can get writing earlier.
By looking at the times that you have available outside of work, most writers can even carve out even times to write when they are unencumbered and not too tired.
For instance, I work best first thing in the morning when I taught full-time. I used to wake up around 5:30 a.m. I’d have a protein bar for breakfast and then I would write for two or three hours. Then I would go and teach for the day. My morning writing time has been sacrosanct for me over the past 25 years.
Between classes I sometimes had a bit of time. So, I would do some planning and research at the library. Sometimes, I would get a study room at the library so that I wouldn’t be disturbed for an hour or so and I did some writing. I got a lot of writing done because I looked for time slots to write.
Then when I got home in the evening, I would do a bit more writing. If I wasn’t too tired after dinner, I would write for an hour or two and then wind down for the day.
Most successful writers create a schedule to write regularly. To manage your time most effectively and to be your best, you too should find times to write.
Tip 9. Distinguish Between Urgent and Nonurgent Writing Projects
The temptation for writers may be to view everything that is relatively important as urgent. But this isn’t always the case. Many times, what we believe is important isn’t really urgent. By keeping this distinction in mind, writers can concentrate on what is most important.
By consistently reassessing the importance of writing projects and prioritizing them, writers will come to see that sometimes the stuff we believe is urgent isn’t all that important after all. To be most successful, writers should prioritize their writing projects so that the time slots they allocate to complete a writing project hits the mark to complete their three main goals for the year.
Starting, and especially completing, a writing project is not an easy task. It is easy to be excited about a project at the beginning. Who doesn’t like a brand-new idea floating in our minds? Who doesn’t like to start a brand-new project? It is new and fresh. But how can we feel inspired to keep working on the project persistently so that we can complete it?
Here are a few tips to try out when starting a new project.
1. Decide to work on one writing project at a time and keep working on it until you complete it. It can be hard to be consistently committed to your writing projects as life will cause many unnecessary interruptions. The only way for writers to be successful is to move past interruptions to a place of peace so that they can successfully create a firm intention to complete the project.
2. Rate all other priorities both on the desk and outside with family and friends as 1, 2, or 3. Then create an agenda for the 1’s first, and delegate the 2’s to someone else. Finally, put the 3’s in a drawer or folder designated the 3-file. Set aside a few hours once a month to go through the items in the 3-file and see if it’s still important enough to pursue later. You will probably discover that most of these things in that file are even less important now than they were before.
3. Many times, perfectionism can cause procrastination. We must remember that our writing doesn’t have to be perfect. There is nothing harder than aiming for perfection all the time. It can cause a lack of self-confidence in our writing. But more importantly, it can make writers feel unproductive.
4. Solve problems that are outside of the main writing project as it occurs, as much as this is possible. Postponing the solution can waste a lot of time and energy, which will be needed when you write. So, tackle anything that can be given an easy solution right away.
5. Have fun with your new writing project. You may want to listen to soothing music as you write. Or you may want to reward yourself after you finish writing for the day. Whatever it is, just celebrate every small accomplishment. The celebration doesn’t have to be big. But it does have to make a difference and inspire you to keep writing the next day.
Every day we are given the opportunity to start a new project and re-prioritize. We can also rethink our overall priorities as a writer. This is one way of being your best as a writer.
Now it’s time to step out of the negative space into a more positive and productive space, one small re-evaluation of our writing priorities at a time.
Answer these questions for self-reflection in your writer's journal.
- Do you divide up your day into slots? How can you take steps to do so starting this coming week?
- Take some steps to prioritize your writing projects. Take your writing goals and decide which ones you will work on this coming week. Post both your list of goals and how you will prioritize it to answer this question.
- Do you know what part of the day you are most productive?
- Are you a morning person? An afternoon or evening person? Or are you a night lark?
- Can you distinguish between urgent and nonurgent goals? If so, how do you do so.
That’s it for now!
Irene S. Roth
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