APPLY THIS PROGRAM FOR WRITING REGULARLY IF YOU DON’T HAVE A LOT OF TIME
“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together’” (George Eliot).
When a young William Faulkner met the famous short story writer Sherwood Anderson and learned that Anderson worked only a few hours and had the rest of the day to do what he pleased, Faulkner thought that was a pretty good deal and decided the writer’s life was for him. But you are probably not a person of leisure and must work on writing during the limited time available to you, which may not be much.
In Publish and Flourish, Tara Gray advocates a writing program of a short 15-30 minutes rather than waiting for large blocks of time longer than three hours. Her interest was mainly academic writing and her little book was aimed at academics writing scholarly articles. But the research findings she cites and her prescriptions are pertinent to any writers who don’t have the luxury of lots of available time.
Gray refers to a survey of a college faculty engaged in research who estimated they worked almost 60 hours per week, including half of that time on research. The subjects were asked to keep records of their work weeks by jotting down every fifteen minutes whether or not they were working. Although writing was supposedly to be the main emphasis, only a small fraction of their time was actually devoted to writing—30 minutes per week. The subjects agreed that they weren’t as busy as they thought and had free periods or periods of time spent on low-priority activities, time that could be used for writing.
To avoid irregular writing, program the activity–write on a regular basis. Writing every day even for a quarter or half hour will greatly improve your production. In one study people who wrote for a quarter hour to a half hour wrote twice as many total hours and produced ten times as many published articles as people who wrote for more than three hours, but sporadically.
Form a pact with a buddy. You’re more likely to achieve your writing goals—or any kind of goals–if you make clear to another person or persons what you’re trying to accomplish and share your results with them. And ask them to support and help monitor your efforts. In one study writers who wrote daily and kept records AND also made themselves accountable to another person for writing daily, outperformed the writers who wrote in blocks and didn’t keep records 9:1.
A group of writers were studied over two years. In the first year, they wrote occasionally in big blocks of time. In the second year, they wrote 15-30 minutes daily, kept records, and held themselves accountable to others. The percentage of participants who finished manuscripts rose from 10% in the first year to 100% in the second year.” (C.R. Boice “Strategies for Enhancing Scholarly Productivity.”)
Tara Gray suggests that the buddy should have certain characteristics:
- Should understand the absolute importance of writing daily.
- Should hold you responsible for your daily writing without shaming or blaming.
- Needn’t be a writer.
One writer said, “Just having to tell someone the silly excuses I have for not working on my research helped me quit allowing it to happen.”
- Get the most benefit from your time no matter how little of it you have. French chancellor Henri Francois D’Aguesseau noticed that his wife came down for dinner ten minutes or so late every evening. Over a period of a little over a year he completed a book of three volumes while waiting for her, and the book became a bestseller in 1688.
- Don’t stop writing. “Once at the desk…you will find your subconscious drawing on various reserves to persuade you to stop: fear, boredom, and the impulse to track down that trivial point by adjourning to the library… Don’t.”( Deirdre N. McCloskey, Economical Writing).
- Write first thing in the morning. What you do first every day without exceptions gets done. Almost all writers are successful when they write in the morning. Many people who write at other times experiment and find that morning is best.
- Keep daily records and weekly summaries. Writers who keep daily record of time spent writing outperform writers who don’t keep daily records 4:1. A format to use: Jot down the exact minute you start actual writing, not your warm-up, not your review of yesterday’s writing. Doing that will be a message to yourself: “Now I’m focusing on writing.” Note the time you stop for a break and when you resume. And the time when you quit for the day. Write from the first day of the writing project. Note every day the amount of time you spent writing.
- Treat yourself to something pleasant as a reward for staying with the program.
| Sun | Mo | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Total for week | Shared with partner | |||||||
| Writing time
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| Minutes Writing
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If you need to do research, keep your research minutes to the barest reasonable minimum and your writing minutes to a maximum. You needn’t write for long periods to be more highly productive than you might expect.
© 2020 David J. Rogers
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