Time to write: What is your real priority?

Where do you find time to write? My logical mind tells me that writing input is minimal and therefore I should be able to write huge amounts in the time I have available. But I do not have huge amounts of writing done and time keeps slipping away. How do you fix that?

I committed to do an article once a week. Last week's article (this article) did not get done because on Friday and Saturday when I planned to work on it I couldn't. Friday was taken up by urgent admin, an insurance claim and refuting a credit note. Saturday I lost my time because my wife had a meeting and preparation that ran most of the day, so I had the kids, and the evening we had a birthday supper.

The easy solution is to do it early this week as long as it gets done. Which I am doing, but the school closed for the holidays on Friday so I have one of the kids at home. The other one goes to a playschool that does not close. He is helping me to work and sits behind me working on the home PC. His work consists on typing names or drawing lines. Drawing lines he can do but typing names require me to spell words out to him and pointing out letters on the keyboard. That makes me one very distracted writer.

The reality is that many people who want to write has to do it within or on top of a full life already racing along at top speed. I have not solved the puzzle yet but here are some thoughts I have on getting the time to write:

Prioritize writing

This may be stating the obvious. You are serious about being a writer and of course writing is important but this is not the same as making it a priority. There is a difference between having something a priority and being serious about something.

I am serious about staying healthy and for that I know I need to get enough exercise. But it is not a priority because I can go days without any exercise at all and not even notice. However it is a priority for me to stay alive and for that I need to eat. I can't skip a day without eating and not notice.

You may think that eating is part of survival and cannot be equated to writing. But if your writing is really important to you, so important that it feels like you might not survive if you do not write, then you have made it a priority.

When you have made something a priority you will find the time to write. But it will cost you. And you have to be willing to accept the cost.

Eliminate time wasters

A time waster is anything that takes time that you could have used to write. If you spend an hour every day vacuuming the house that is 5 hours a week you are not writing. Eliminate 80% of your vacuuming and vacuum once a week. Then take the other 4 hours and write.

Carmel Bird says "you have the choice of a clean house or a finished story." If the house is not your time waster then rephrase that to an immaculate yard, great abbs, a rocking social life or whatever else you think is important.

The basic principle for finding time to write is that you cannot make writing a priority if you do not make the space for it. And the only way to make space is to eliminate things that are less important. That does not mean these things are not important at all. Your kids need to be fed and put to bed, you need to spend time with your family, you may have to earn a living. But you need to make the space for writing despite that.

Whenever you find yourself doing something ask yourself, wouldn't this time be better spent writing. If the answer is yes, stop what you are doing and go write. If the answer is no then revisit your writing priority.

Steal time

Life goes on and even if you make writing a priority there are still things that need doing. You need to go to the dentist. You need to commute to and from work. You need to do the laundry.

You can steal time by doubling up. Before you start a task that you have to do write something down that you need to resolve in your writing. For example, write down: Get an idea for a book. (This assumes you are not working on a book yet.) Then do whatever needs to be done and let your mind mull over the question.

The moment you finish your task take 5 minutes and write down whatever you thought up or what springs from your unconscious. These small writing steps all ad up. By constantly stealing snippets of time and dedicating them to your writing project you will not only keep the writing fresh in your mind you will also keep the ball rolling and build onto your book in progress.

Note: Now I have to stop this writing article and go and help the four year old clean up in the living room. In that time I will also go and move the laundry from the washer to the dryer but I will leave my subconscious to work on the idea of getting quality time carved out.

Carve out quality time

Larger blocks of time are necessary to get down to serious writing. You can never expect to flow and get into your book unless you spend some quality time writing.

For your quality time to write you need to negotiate with anybody relevant and demand your pound of flesh. You need a place or a space to go away from the demands of your normal life and you need not only claim the time and space but declare it sacred. Close the door, go to a coffee shop, go sit in the car in the garage, as long as you can have dedicated time and headspace where you can write.

Big blocks of time push your writing project on. Your whole being sense the investment you make and therefore realize the importance. Your life will become more accommodating to your needs once you declare and claim them with courage. And one of your most primary needs as a writer is to have the time to write.

Personally I learned something new about myself in the last couple of weeks. I can only relax and let myself be fully absorbed by my writing once I know everybody else is sorted out. This means that some of my best writing time ends up being at night when everybody else is sleeping, even though I hate working at night.

If you want to find the time to write you need to be willing to do what it takes. Time won't be given to you on a platter. You may have to fight for every minute, every second. You will have to give up things you love to do. If you are lucky you can also worm yourself out of things you don't want to do.

But if you want to write that is what you have to do, make the time to write and then write.

Gerhi Janse van Vuuren

P.S. I sense that what I wrote above is only an introduction to finding time to write that don't even begin to scratch the surface and that I will return to this topic again soon.

Carmel Bird, Dear Writer: Advice to aspiring authors, Virago Press, 1990