We all wish we had more time to dedicate to our writing practice, but the reality is that we have the time we have. So how do we fit writing into our already busy lives? In this episode, we’re using a three-step process to explore where writing falls in your daily life priorities – in a judgment-free zone – and using that information to make intentional, guilt-free decisions.
Transcript:
Stephanie: (00:07)
Hello writers. Today, I’m gonna tell you something personal about myself. I am not a gardener . We live in a house with a pretty standard sized yard, and we have several sections of the yard that are garden plots. For years, I tried to keep them up, but consistently things I planted either died or grew to uncontrollable proportions. Even now, while I’ve taken some of the pressure off of myself to have a beautiful yard, I still feel this guilt and shame about my gardening acumen. During the Covid lockdowns, I rededicated myself to taking care of the garden, but even then, it slid into complete disarray. And do you know what? I’ve realized gardening is just not a high priority. I’ve had a lot of shoulds around it, but when it comes right down to it, I just don’t care that much. Why do I share this?
Stephanie: (01:07)
Because one of the biggest challenges I hear from writers is that they just can’t get themselves to sit down and write. They tell me that they really want to, but for whatever reason they don’t. This has been true for me from time to time too, so I have no judgment here. But when someone tells me this, the first thing we dig into is their priorities. So today I’m going to share with you my process for identifying your priorities, and more importantly, recognizing and respecting where writing fits. Once we’ve done this process, we can stop shoulding all over ourselves and schedule writing sessions in a way that actually works for our daily life. Before we get into that though, I want to say that I know how life can get in the way, and your personal goal of writing a book can get pushed to the back burner, even if it is a high priority.
Stephanie: (02:04)
Apply for a free call with me right now, and let’s figure out how to get this novel written in a way that works for your daily life. Click on the link below and let’s talk. Okay, so I have a three-step process for identifying your priorities and clarifying how writing fits in with everything else, I wanna make it really clear that I know priorities change over time, so this is a process I go through a few times each year. As you do this process with me today, I want you to acknowledge that these are your priorities right now, today, not for the rest of your life. Okay? Step one is to list everything that you’re responsible for in your daily life. It helps to be as specific as possible. For example, instead of just listing family, you might list carpool and making dinner as separate things that you do for your family.
Stephanie: (02:56)
Don’t worry about writing these in any kind of order just yet. Once you’ve exhausted that list of responsibilities, step two is to add in everything that you want in your life that’s not already on the list. For example, you might not have considered exercise as a responsibility, so you might list it now. Writing might come in on this list, meditation, date, night, drinks with friends, things like that. Now, step three is the challenging part. I’ll admit that we’re now going to put these in order of importance or in order of priority. The thing at the top is the thing that you’ll cancel everything else in order to do, right, and then we go down the list. From there, put in everything that you have on your list from the first two steps, as well as anything new that pops into your mind. Now, if things need to be tied or equal to each other in priority, that’s totally fine.
Stephanie: (03:53)
The entire reason we’re doing this is to see where writing falls, so don’t worry about being too precious with the order. Now, every person’s list is going to be different. There is no judgment here, not from me and not from you. You’re going to show this list to nobody. In fact, you can burn it when you’re done if you want to. The one question you’re seeking to answer is this, what is okay for me to do in place of a writing session? I.e, the things above it on the list, and what is not okay for me to do in place of writing i.e, the things below it. Again, this is a judgment free exercise. You’re creating this priority list out of a simple curiosity to see where writing falls. Once you recognize that writing is a higher priority than say, gardening , you can decide if a free afternoon might be spent writing instead of pulling up weeds, and the decision can be made guilt free. Remember, you can write a novel with a schedule that fits your life, and this is the first step to getting there. In a future video, we’ll look at how to put writing sessions on your calendar in a way that makes sense for you. If you like this content and know someone who might like it to, please subscribe and share. Thanks, happy writing.o might enjoy this video, please subscribe and share. I’ll see you next time. Happy writing.