Getting Writing Done Within a Busy Life
As an academic editor and developmental writing coach, I spend a lot of time thinking about how my clients can get writing done. After all, many academics feel pressure (and/or desire) to write, but just as many find it difficult to make time for that writing. It’s common for scholars to face large service commitments, demanding teaching loads, and extensive personal commitments, including caring for others. The majority of faculty do not work at schools that provide generous leaves and many contingent and adjunct faculty balance multiple appointments across different sorts of institutions.
So how the heck can we find the time to write?
In my work with scholars and in my own experience as an academic writer, a major barrier I’ve observed to getting writing done is the myth that we need large blocks of time to produce good academic writing. Many authors have told me that they really can’t be productive unless they have significant writing blocks, say two to four hours in length. This is fine if you have the kind of job and life that provides you with long chunks of time in which to write. But few of us have this! This is why many people who have said this to me have not, in fact, produced much writing.
So I urge writers to instead be open to setting aside short blocks of writing time. These can be as brief as ten or fifteen minutes, although half an hour or 45 minutes is great too. The main idea is to try and schedule several short writing times a week. Of course, it’s fine to have longer ones too if you have the time for them, but it’s often much easier to make time for 30 minutes of writing than it is for two hours.
How does this work?
Well, four half-hour writing times a week add up to one two-hour block. So what you can accomplish within these short periods adds up over time.
But I argue that several short writing periods a week is actually better than one long block. This is primarily because writing more frequently helps keep your work in your head. That means that when you sit down to write, it is easier to get going. The nuances of the argument you’ve been working through or your reasoning behind your revised structure are fresh in your mind. This means that you don’t have to spend time at the beginning of your writing sessions reacquainting yourself with your project, and you can just dive right in.
Furthermore, visiting your work several times a week keeps it fresh in your brain so that you can think through (subconsciously or consciously) aspects of it between writing times. That means that sometimes you will sit down to write and be surprised to learn that a problem works itself out more easily than you anticipated.
Another advantage to these short writing times is that they help prevent you from getting frustrated for not getting writing done. Once frustration sets in it can actually make it more difficult to get back to writing. Shorter writing sessions are thus partly useful because they keep the work going over time.
I advocate for scheduling writing sessions around time (i.e. a half an hour of writing) rather than a certain number of words (i.e. write until I’ve written 150 words) for a couple of reasons. The latter approach assumes that the goal of writing is to produce words. This is certainly partly true, but not every writing session needs to be about producing words. When we are deeper into a piece we may be revising or rewriting. We may be verifying sources or reordering sections. We may be analyzing our argument throughout a manuscript to try and understand if we have fully developed it. All of these activities are writing, but they can’t be quantified as easily. Second, I urge my clients to avoid writing goals that may be difficult to meet. If you feel frustrated because you didn’t meet your word count, you may be more likely to avoid writing next time or just feel bad. None of us need that!
Of course, there isn’t one magic formula to getting writing done. Word count might work for some of you. Maybe one of you has, indeed, written your book quickly in four-hour blocks. I’d love to hear about what works for you in the comments or via email!
But if you feel you aren’t being as productive in your writing as you’d like, I urge you to try scheduling short writing blocks. Experiment to help determine what works best for you. Maybe you find half-hour sessions four times a week helpful. Maybe three 45-minute sessions is the magic formula. Maybe you find that working in however much time you can (15 minutes to an hour) several times a week is best. Whatever the case, don’t discount the value of short periods of writing time. I promise that you’ll be surprised by how what you produce during these sessions quickly adds up. After all, I wrote this blog in three 20- to 30-minute sessions!
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