How do I... Find Time to Write

My 5 tips for writing with a deadline, two toddlers and Thomas More looking over my shoulder..

‘Among these occupations’, the prolific Tudor author and very busy lawyer/politician/father Thomas More wrote, ‘the day, the month, the year slip away… When, then, can we find time to write?’

As a freelance writer, I have to write quickly without losing quality. As a mum of two young children, finding the time is a daily struggle. Here are some of the strategies I’ve found useful over the years, in the hopes they might help you as well.

1. Rhythm is a Writer.

   Figure out what your rhythms are and respect them. Some people advise hitting your desk and writing first thing, and doing emails at the end of the day. I can’t work until I know that there is nothing urgent in my inbox. Likewise I am neither an early bird nor a night owl. I am some sort of daytime sparrow. Of course sometimes you have to adjust to a new rhythm, but don’t force someone else’s on yourself unnecessarily.

2. Strike while the interest is hot.

   Ride the wave of your interest and make the most of it. If you’ve got something to work on and you wake up bubbling about it – go for it. Get it out now. Much better than having to force it later. Writing is like a child, it can read all your forced smiles and efforts and it is not impressed. Of course, interest can often be the mask worn by procrastination on another project so beware, but in general if you are juggling deadlines, work on the one for which you have the excitement now.

3. Free your mind.

   Your mind needs time untethered, when it is allowed to wander, free from reading, listening, talking, or scrolling. All of those things can be crucial fuel to writers, but without the time to settle in your mind and space to develop, they can’t do their work. It’s like skipping corpse pose in yoga; you lose the benefits if you don’t take time to just be. And of course, something to jot down your ideas when they do emerge is essential to a good harvest.

4. Go to bed hungry.

   It can be very tempting to end a writing session with a sense of completion, finishing a chapter, section, etc. It does feel like an invitation to down tools, and get on with the rest of your day/evening. But this can be a recipe for disaster for future-you. The next time you sit down, you will be faced with a new empty page and no idea where to start, without the advantage of momentum and the ideas that marinated overnight. So, do yourself a favour. Spend just another 5 or 10 minutes setting up what’s next. Give your future-self a puzzle to solve, a sense of direction, an outline, a hook and some tempting ellipses. Anything to get the ball rolling. And it’s not just about the next writing session. By just making the smallest start on the next task, your brain will keep working on it as you go about your day. This is the exciting bit, when your brain churns out ideas without your intervention. But it can only happen if you keep the door open, the stew on the simmer. Don’t get up from your desk and cheat yourself of this when you feel that sense of completion. Instead, tear yourself away when you’re just getting excited about what comes next.

5. Don’t make time. Take it.

   There are 24hrs in a day; you can’t will more into existence (trust me, I’ve tried). Writing time will have to come from these 24 hours, even if they might have been allocated elsewhere. And they might come in smaller snatches of minutes rather than hours. I’ve lately been clearing my kids’ nap time by eating an early lunch with them and getting chores done while they’re playing. This wasn’t possible when they were younger, but it is now. And it gives me an hour or so to write while I still have a bit of energy (as opposed to the end of the day when I just collapse). I used to only get into my work if I had a whole day to work with, but needs must, and I’m enjoying the way it gives me the opportunity to just do a little something for the day - edit a section, finish a scene, or read a primary source.

When I think of Thomas More, with his volumes upon volumes of work, I often think of that line from Hamilton - ‘why do you write like you’re running out of time?’. But the bigger question, I think, is ‘how do you write when you’re running out of time?’. These are some of my tips — what are yours?