In Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Death reminds someone that “You lived what anybody else gets. You got a lifetime.”

Everyone has an equal amount of time each day. How you use it matters. And when you’re not already a full-time author, you necessarily have other things you need to work on first. Maximizing your time doesn’t mean squeezing in every possible moment of work; it means getting things done as efficiently as possible. That sometimes means your writing takes low priority, and that might not be a bad thing. For most people, writing shouldn’t be the most important thing in their lives.

But most of us — or, perhaps, most of those who stick with it — are writing because we have to. Because the stories are going through our heads and we feel like we’ll explode if we don’t find a way to get them out. If other people like the stories, so much the better. If other people will pay for the same stories . . . well, that’s just plain awesome. If other people pay for it to the extent that we can do it full time? For most of us, that’s the dream.

Getting there means developing habits and treating writing like a responsibility. That includes figuring out how much time per week you really have to devote to writing. I say per week because while a daily writing habit is all well and good, our routine is rarely identical from one day to the next. A month, on the other hand, is too long to plan out very well. A week, on the gripping hand, is just right. In fact, society already does it that way, to the point that the rhythms of one week usually mirror those of the weeks preceding and following it. Lean into that by creating a weekly time budget to plan out your writing goals.

The first step is to identify three different categories:

  • Personal Necessities (what you need to do to stay functional and healthy)
  • Predictable Responsibilities (what other people count on you doing)
  • Desirables (what you look forward to doing)

There are 168 hours in a week. Many of them are already spoken for. If you’re saying “there aren’t enough hours in the day” or similar phrases, then it might be a good idea to stop and think about what you’re spending time on in the first place. Just like with a financial budget, there are often quite a few instances of waste that we don’t prioritize; and it’s often the little things that have brought us over our budget.

Personal Necessities

Your biggest time-sink is one that can be very tempting to skimp on, but you really shouldn’t; and that’s sleep. If you’re getting eight hours of sleep, you’re spending a third of your week unconscious. That’s quite a lot out of your budget.

I knew a professor in college who very seriously insisted that we should only be spending 6 hours sleeping each night, because “You’re young, you can handle it.” Don’t follow his advice. The people who got sick more often and for longer tended to be the ones who habitually shorted themselves on sleep. The more tired you are, the less functional you are, and the more vulnerable you are to illness, which is a productivity killer. Sure, you might be over the worst of that cold in a few days, but that’s three days of lost productivity and probably a lingering week or two of misery as you deal with the rest of the effects.

Another necessity is the time you need for food, hygiene, and exercise, which I’ll lump together under biology. It’s very tempting to depend on fast food, but keep in mind that fast food isn’t always that fast, and it usually isn’t healthy to depend on it. Again, the healthier you are, the more productive you are. You should figure on approximately 20 hours of “biology” per week. That includes dedicated exercise. Trust me, I know it can get difficult. I’m handicapped and I’m pretty limited in how much I can exercise.

Finally, you need to be certain you’re getting enough recreation. Yes, recreation is a necessity. Don’t burn out. I recommend 14 hours of recreation per week, for an average of two hours per day or, effectively, one whole day per week. As the 7 Habits book recommends, you have to take time to sharpen your saw or it’s going to take far more effort for the same results.

Responsibilities

We all have responsibilities, things that other people count on us doing on time or, quite often, at a moment’s notice. These can include school, your job, family obligations, household chores, and volunteering.

A high school student is typically spending 38 hours in school, and is typically expected to have around 10-15 hours of homework. A full-time undergraduate student is usually taking 4-6 classes per semester, for an average of about 15 in-class hours and up to 30 non-class hours working on assignments, research, and papers. So yes, being a high school student or undergrad is more of a time commitment than a 40-hour full-time job. Plan that accordingly. If you have time left over each week, great, but it’s a good idea to err on the side of caution when budgeting.

A graduate student is typically working while taking one or two classes, which will normally amount to 30 to 60 hours per week depending on the combination. Again, err on the side of budgeting for more time, and you might have more left over to spend on other pursuits.

Family obligations can be unpredictable. Right now, for example, I have three boys under 5 years, one of them a newborn. It’s nearly impossible to plan around them and my wife’s needs, because they change throughout the day, much less through the week. What you can do, though, is set aside an approximate amount of time you expect family to occupy at some point. Then add a little more, because switching gears back to what you were previously doing takes a non-trivial amount of effort.

Chores could be listed as a necessity, but I put them here because they can vary. To use another example from my own life, spring is starting shortly and I have to do a bunch of yardwork, and there are a few home-improvement projects I need to handle as well. These will take me extra time since I tire very easily; while most people could lay down both weed-and-feed and fire ant treatments on a lawn our size in a single day, it will likely take me three days at least. I have to plan around that. Other chores can include going to the grocery store, doing the dishes, cleaning your house, doing the laundry, getting your oil changed, picking up dry cleaning, or making a stop to find a birthday gift — some might be a regular thing, others might only happen a few times per year.

Work, volunteering, school, chores, and family all come with an additional cost as well: preparation. Switching between tasks usually can’t be done on a dime, and require extra steps that all cost time. You likely have a commute, need to change into something more appropriate for the task at hand, and generally have to do some level of maintenance to keep doing the thing the way people expect.

Desirables

This category is both easy and hard. These are the things we want to do after we’ve completed the necessities and responsibilities. It might be art, writing, extra recreation, going to special events, reading an interesting book, building homemade furniture, indulging in a hobby, etc.

While it might seem like the main work of the previous budgeting categories is more difficult, this is when you really need to prioritize. This is what you’re doing with your spare time — spare, not “free time,” because you paid for this. Everyone has the same budget, but you’re looking to spend yours wisely precisely so you can get to your desirables.

For example, a high school student with a fifteen-hour part-time job could have as much as 20 hours left over in the budget. That’s a lot of time for practicing writing or another pursuit. But an undergrad college student with the same job and a few more adult responsibilities might wind up with as little as 7 spare hours left over.

So this category means really paying attention to what you find motivating. Which activities do you most want to do? Which can you put off for now in order to focus on something else?

The above chart is an example of a typical professional adult working a 40-hour job (plus commute time). When eight hours is all you have left per week, you have to make those eight hours count — or reduce your commitments elsewhere by mixing and matching your responsibilities though multitasking.

Multitasking

But it’s important to point out something that many of you likely already noticed: that several of these categories can be combined. You can listen to audiobooks while commuting or doing yard work. Exercise might be part of your standard recreation, such as through a regular game of basketball with some friends, attending a martial arts club, or going to a boffer LARP once a month. You might have a job that lets you write while on the clock during lulls between clients. You might dictate notes into your phone while doing dishes (though speech recognition might Altair whatever the duck you sat — don’t you fate it win that hippos?).

Combining tasks as much as possible will create greater efficiency, but also comes with a greater risk of burnout from the pace. There was a story at my second college of a young man who managed a triple major in four years, but he had to plan out every moment of his day with, supposedly, no wiggle room. Since he graduated with honors, he clearly didn’t burn out, but he also didn’t do a lot of social events. He likely got through it on the satisfaction inherent in the task at hand, something not everyone can do for its own sake.

But, if you’re one of those types who writes because you must, because otherwise it feels like you’ll burst, then not only will that likely count as at least some of your recreation budget, it will also serve as motivation to get everything else done. And this is the real benefit you’ll have from doing a weekly time budget: when you see it laid out in front of you, you’ll get motivated to combine different tasks.

As Thomas Edison said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” If you want to get things done, you can’t wait for a muse to clear your schedule. You have to build it yourself from the ground up.