How to Write All Weekend

For a few years in my 20s, I met weekly with a group of painters, writers and musicians to discuss our progress as we worked Julia Cameron's spiritual path to creativity, The Artist's Way.

My friends and I took "artist dates" and met every weekend to share the sculptures, sonnets and songs we'd created. Over time, many of us changed our lives to enable us to make creative expression a top priority. 

One day, a member of our group announced amazing news.

"I've saved up some cash," he said.  "I just quit my day job.  I'm going to write full-time!"

40 extra hours a week? To write?  I was incredibly envious.  (Happy for him, but envious.)

My newly full-time artist friend did some good creative work at first, but as the months passed by, he got depressed.  Without a daily structure and routine, he just couldn't focus. 

He stopped making art.

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As anyone who's ever dedicated an afternoon to writing and found themselves wasting the hours away instead, more time doesn't necessarily equate to more--or better--writing.  

It is entirely possible to drown your productivity in an abundance of time.  With skillful time management you can avoid the perils of unstructured, extended work sessions (what I call "time bloat") and stay focused on your writing. 

Here's how.

Tip #1 - Segment & Stop

Planning to "write all weekend?"

You'll create urgency and focus for yourself if you break down your overall goal ("20 hours of focused work on my novel") into a series of discrete writing sessions.  (One of my clients, Dan Schifrin, calls his work sessions "modules." I like this approach.)

Adjust the length of your work sessions to fit your needs.

• Most folks I've coached do well with planning up to 2 solid hours of writing at a time.
• You may prefer to plan for 45 minutes at a time or 4 hours...everyone's different.

When you're ready, note the time and begin writing.  When your session's elapsed and your time is up, (here's the rub)...

Stop. 

Be as serious about honoring your time limit as you are about your writing.  Stopping when you say you will builds integrity ("I do what I say!") and also creates urgency and focus: your own personal deadline.

Tip #2 - Reward Yourself

As a Kiwi friend of mine used to say:  Good on ya!

If you've followed my suggestions, you segmented your time into smaller work sessions and stopped writing when said you would.

You wrote. And you honored your commitment to your own deadline. 

You deserve a little reward for all this work, dontcha' think?

The key to staying energized and alert is to give yourself periods of "guilt-free play" (this is Neil Fiore's term, from his fantastic book, The Now Habit) between back-to-back writing sessions.  

My suggestion is that you shoot for 5-10 minutes of play for every hour of focused writing.  As an example, I often write--and coach--in 40-50-minute work sessions beginning at the top of the hour.  I use the last 10 minutes of each hour to call a friend, stretch outside or sip a cup of tea.  After awhile, this way of segmenting your time will become a habit.

Conscious "fun" breaks are refreshing and relaxing.  An added benefit? In this space of "not-trying," you also give new ideas and insights a chance to surface.

Two guidelines for you: 

1.  Step away from the writing desk.  (This means putting down the pen and closing the laptop, if you have to.)

2.  Choose an activity that's very different from writing.  (Get back into your body, walk outside, feed the fish.) You'll find plenty of suggestions for fun on this blog. Just search The Relaxed Writer's "Ease" and "Balance" categories for ideas.

Be deliberate with your time and honor your need for play.  Using these tips, you'll alternate "structure" with play and your writing-weekend word count grow.

image credit:  PinkSherbertPhotography (Flickr.com)

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Follow Me on Twitter:  @MarlaBeck

Comments

[Coach Marla -The Relaxed Writer]

Shelley, it's interesting: many writers I coach are really productive and organized on the job, but struggle with managing their own time and writing projects.

Given that you've obviously got a lot on the ball already, you might find my recent post, "Be Your Own Project Manager" (http://bit.ly/axSb1D) helpful.

Thanks for stopping by and look forward to hearing more about your writing, Shelley.

warmly,
Coach Marla

[Shelley Gable]

Good suggestions! While I'm great with time management in my day job, I'm not quite as disciplined with my writing. Why are blogs and facebook so tempting? =) Anyway, planning time in modules makes a lot of sense...thanks!

[Marla]

@Carolyn, Thanks for the good words. Reading your comment made me think of that "notice the edges" drawing exercise from _Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain._ It's a useful practice, this notion of paying attention to the "edges" of things.

@Louise, So cool that you shared your experiment with us - glad you had some luck with the "mind your stopping time" suggestion. Thanks so much for sharing your experience with us.

[Louise]

I ended up adding a bunch of things to my schedule last week so I didn't have as much unstructured time as I thought, but in the time I had, I have found that putting a time limit on and then stopping when that time is up is a surprisingly effective and counterintuitive tactic.

[Louise]

Perfect timing on this article! My daughter will soon be going to 6th grade camp for a whole week, so I will have loads of unstructured time. I often find myself floundering with that much time on my hands and don't get nearly as much done as I would like. I will definitely put this idea to the test soon, and let you know how it goes!

[Carolyn]

These are such wonderful tips! I am pretty good about scheduling focused writing time, but am not good at honoring the end-time. It's so important to remember that stopping is just as (or close to!) important as starting.