Tag Archive: Productivity


Weekly Time Management

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.

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Yes, that’s right. I’m going to give you the secret, handed down from the writing gods. It is the secret you have climbed this mountain to find, young supplicant, through the freezing glaciers, without climbing gear and bearing a rare flower in your teeth, just to prove your worthiness.

The secret is . . . that there is no secret. The secret is that you have to put in the effort. The secret is that you can have all the great ideas you want; but unless you practice your craft, unless you write and write and write, unless you try and fail and learn from the experience, unless you do what everyone learning any craft must do since the dawn of the ages, you will never write that novel.

Inspiration

But that’s not the title of this blog post. The reason why you’re reading this is because you’re asking “Okay, Mr. Bowman, how do I write a novel in three months? Just sit down and write? Oh, is that all?” Continue reading

I did not give this post a more obvious name, because then I would have to list an eighth habit of highly productive writers: avoiding C&D letters from people who have successfully trademarked the phrase “7 Habits.” (No, really.)

This is a long post, but it’s also a complex topic. I thought about splitting it into other posts, but I figured that keeping it in one place was better for you than padding my post-count.

Being a professional creator is a different job from, well, pretty much every other job. There are no set hours, no set workspace, not even a single set of rules that works for everyone. It’s a job that requires dedication and persistence, and the development of particular habits that may, in Aristotelian splendor, grow into virtues.

It’s a job where success is not measured in time spent, but rather your output; so if you’re trying to get paid for your work, then you know that every moment you don’t spend working is a moment you won’t get paid for later. Taking a sick day doesn’t mean your coworkers have to pull your slack — it means you don’t get anything done. Period. It’s not just a good idea to maximize your productivity. It’s vital.

I’ve collected some habits below that may work for you. I guarantee that not all of them will. It’s an easy guarantee because some of them are contradictory — but that’s the nature of being a professional creator. Some things that work for you won’t work for anyone else.

Because of that, I have another guarantee: there is something you can do to maximize your productivity that is not on this list. Finding it is up to you. I’m just giving you some suggestions to try.

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