by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
First a special note—yesterday marked the first anniversary of the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine. The WKB is the free, searchable archive, developed by Mike Fleming, for all the writing-related links I share. Hope you’ll try it for information on writing a novel, querying an agent or publisher, or promoting your book.
I think a lot about ways to be more productive. We all have only a certain number of hours in our day and a certain number of things we need to accomplish in those hours.
I have a really tight schedule up until summer and I’ve been grabbing my writing time when I can find it.
I’m an early riser. In the past, I’ve tried to go straight to my computer in the morning and get some writing done….first thing.
I knew I was supposed to do this. I knew it helped me get my writing goals met for the day. I knew it made me start off the day on the right foot—with a win.
But I didn’t really think about the underlying reasons I was doing it. And because I didn’t, it meant that I didn’t ascribe the importance to the task that I should have.
Over the holidays, I got into a different sort of habit. I still got up before dawn, but I was checking my calendar, checking my emails, and checking online activity: had the blog I’d scheduled posted correctly? Did I have any messages in my Twitter DM folder that I should read?
Those are things that do need to be done. Do they need to be done at 4:45 a.m., though? No. I really don’t even need to check my calendar before 5 a.m.—what could I possibly be needed for at that hour, anyway?
Seth Godin had an excellent post a couple of weeks ago. He asked what was the first thing we do at the computer each morning. He suggested it was “checking our incoming.” But he reminded us that, if we’re artists, that:
“the first thing you do should be to lay tracks to accomplish your goals, not to hear how others have reacted/responded….to what happened yesterday.”
In other words, we should be focused on our outgoing, not our incoming. Start out our day creating something new.
After reading Godin’s post, I decided to start writing first each day again. This time, instead of feeling like it was just a chore to knock off my long list, I felt like I had more of a sense of purpose to my writing. I was creating something, moving forward, not looking back at what I might have missed in the last eight hours since I’d last checked my emails or other messages.
And it felt good. In fact, I was more inspired and felt more purposeful.
Have you ever thought about changing your morning routine? Or considered writing before checking in with social media?
Interesting post. I wonder, though, if it makes a difference if a person is an extrovert or introvert, or a morning person or late night person. For me, its a moot point though. I have to get up in the morning, get kids up, check email (yes before work) go to work, and then do all my writing late at night. I like to end the stresses of the day by writing; its my reward.
I think it’s one of those things that may work differently for different people, yes. So, if your high-performing period is at night, you’d still follow the same sort of guideline–write first, skip the blogging or the Twitter, etc. until after you were done.
Yes…trying to ignore all social media all morning in fact. It’s not always easy…but it does feel a heck of a lot better if I get to the editing/writing first thing.
Great post! (as always)
Sharon :)
Sharon–It’s amazing how hard it is to resist it! But it works out so well to avoid it the first thing in the morning.
Elizabeth – That’s such an innovative way to look at things. And it makes sense, too. Starting something new – picking up the writing – before checking social media. I’ve never thought of trying that, but what a way to “stretch.” Then one starts the day hopeful and “charged up” rather than burdened with “What turned up in my email that I have to deal with?” Thanks!
Oh, and congratulations on WKB’s first anniversary! It is a real treasure trove for all things writing!
I’d never thought of it that way either, but it really has changed my whole mindset.
And thanks for the congrats!
I’ve decided to set my alarm to get up earlier. Why? Because it takes me too long to get up after it rings. If it rings earlier, I think I’ll be up at the time I need to be up. So that’s my plan.
I’m always adjusting my schedule to make it work better.
Teresa
Such a great idea–to keep re-evaluating what’s working and what isn’t!
And here I am, checking my watchlists.
Seth has a point.
Ha! Well, glad you made it by, though!
I’m sitting in my office, almost an hour before work starts, when I should be writing.
And I’m checking blog posts. I think I do need to change my morning routine…
It’s so easy to fall into a totally different pattern, isn’t it?
I have a few things I do first thing: check my email and read three favourite comic strips. Then, I usually unplug and write until at least noon. That means physically unplug the internet cable and drop it behind the computer and turn the computer off. There’s always a stack of paper and a cup of sharpened pencils and usually a list of scenes to write. Days like today, when I get sucked into social media, I lose an hour right off the top and might not get to the fresh-brain writing time at all. (Though I do find cool blog posts like this one that send me back to it…)
Well, but if you’re writing with that much discipline, seems like you deserve your comics! But you’re right–so easy to lose an hour or more with social media.
Two brief comments: (1) Your Writer’s Knowledge Base is a blessing. Thanks. (2) Those of us who are morning people tend to do what is most important to us first. For me it is exercise. Five days a week, I go the weight room in our retirement community, life light weights and walk two miles on the treadmill.
Even if I like to do something, I’ll often put it off if I think about it first. Routine helps us do, even those things we enjoy doing.
Thanks so much for saying so, Joe! I really appreciate it. :)
You make such a good point about routine. If we get to the point where something is automatic, we get so much more done (and don’t talk ourselves out of doing it.)
Works the other way for me. I need to knock of those “dots” as one person calls the quickie tasks, before tackling the “dashes”. I do my best writing when I know there’s nothing that needs my attention. Then again, I’m not on deadline and I’m a “retired” empty-nester.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist–of Mystery
Bet you’ll end up with a deadline before long, Terry! You’re absolutely right, though–different things work for different people.
I’ve tried getting right to writing in the mornings before, and it has never worked … I always find myself sneaking little glimpses at social media while I should be working. Never thought about looking at what lies underneath my purposes – why do I have the habit of checking things first? And is it necessary or just mindless?
Thanks for the thought-provoking question this morning!
I totally understand! And I think that’s why I fell off the morning writing bandwagon, originally…I never really put a *reason* with what I was doing. :)
Definitely. Somedays I don’t even look at it until I’ve reached my goals. And it’s amazing all I can do when I start right at 8 a.m. Obviously, not today though!
You’re good! I don’t know if I can wait until after I reach my goals or not…but I should.
Discipline is a good thing. I need more of it.
Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com
Don’t we all!
Now I am dead to the world in the morning so if I have to be up at that hour, I can only do practical things such as feeding the washing machine or my students. My best hours are in the afternoon, and I try to squeeze in more writing time by setting achievable goals. If I can finish my working questions for tomorrow in one hour instead of two, I´ll get more writing time before my brain switches off again.
So ideally, I only blog, check email etc when I have spent my best hours writing – but life is not always ideal.
Life is rarely ideal, is it? If only!
Yes, I do this! I started writing firs thing after reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and doing the 12-week “course.” One of the requirements is doing morning pages, which is three pages of longhand writing first thing when you get up before you do anything else. I liked that so much that afterwards I would write a few hundred words of my fiction, too. It really helps jump-start my creativity for the day.
I think it’s James Scott Bell who does something that he calls the nifty 350, where he writes 350 words on his current project first thing in the morning before doing anything else. It’s a great habit to get into!
Nifty 350! I like that. I think that’s about what I’m averaging before I have to check email to see if the morning carpool for the kids’ schools is still on. :)
I keep hearing about morning pages and have thought about doing it. Maybe one day! Glad it works so well for you, Laura.
I really like this idea. Reminds me a little bit of morning pages, but prioritizing yourself and your writing is so so important. And congrats on the WKB anniversary — it’s a huge resource for me.
Thanks so much! And hope this approach will work for you.
I should try that. I usually check emails first before diving into my list of tasks. Writing tends to get pushed to the evening.
That’s another nice thing about knocking it out in the morning–we get it done even if our day gets hijacked later (and mine usually does!)
Writing in the morning would work if not for my job. But at least it gives me the opportunity to get through most of my online stuff. (Except on Wednesdays when we have thirty minute meetings that last four hours.)
I used to hate those kinds of meetings! You must work in a bank. :) That’s the way it was for me, circa 1995 (for us it was the Friday morning meeting. We met, even if there was nothing to actually meet about…)
I’ve tried a number of different methods. What I find is that I can have a good session first if my schedule is flexible later. That is, if I have an appointment, I won’t do as well in a morning session.
But if I just have a long to do list — but I can put off those othertasks until I get tired in a writing session — then I definitely get a good writing session in first.
The key for me is whether I can write until I’m tired. Now at night, I have very good writing sessions, because I have nothing to do after. (But then, I’m a night owl.)
I can see you being good about keeping to your writing schedule and making it work. Even when your schedule gets hairy! That flexibility is so key, I think.
I often wonder if the reason I check my email first is because I miss my friends. But sometimes I’m teaching an online class and want to check to be sure my students don’t need anything before I get going on other things. But I am genuinely interested in the 100 emails coming in all day and I really do want to read them. In fact, I’ve allowed myself to feel a bit guilty for not reading them, so today I’ve spent the day catching up on the 400+ unread emails in my Inbox. But I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished as much as I do when I get up and write first. MUST remember that!!! LOL! Thanks for the reminder!
This is something I really struggle with, Elizabeth! Being in Australia and in an opposite time zone to America, I often wake up to an inbox filled with emails related to my blog or special projects I’m working on. Almost inevitably, there’s something pressing in that list, and then I feel like I can’t get on with the day until I reply. When my email server died a few weeks ago, I nearly had a heart attack thinking that people were trying to contact me and not getting through! Isn’t that silly? It’s something I’ve been wanting to overcome for ages, so thanks for this reminder :)