How to Make Time for Writing

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How many times have you blamed a lack of time for not writing—even though you say writing matters to you? You reasoned that you were stretched thin, overwhelmed, at capacity, over committed, or didn’t have an extra minute for what you claimed was important to you. You couldn’t make or find time to do what matters—write.

Where has that gotten you?

You know the answer…

You haven’t started, made progress on, or finished your manuscript or published your book.

So how much does writing really matter to you?

You know the answer to that question, too—even if you don’t want to admit it.

If what you say is important to you truly mattered, you would make time for it. You always find time for the thing you value—writing.

Look at Your Life

Don’t believe me? Look at your life.

What do you spend time on now? That’s what matters to you.

Maybe you spend time exercising, making healthy meals, or being with your children. Or you make time to binge-watch your favorite television shows, read novels, eat ice cream, and go out for pizza and beer with your friends. Perhaps you use time consistently to work on an entrepreneurial venture, to complain to friends about your boss, or to doom scroll on Facebook.

What you spend time on now is what you deem important now.

But the other things—the ones you claim are important..like writing—aren’t on your schedule…ever. You don’t make time to write.

You say these writing matters, but it obviously doesn’t. You put other things first, and it comes last.

What Really Matters?

I run a monthly membership program called the Inspired Creator Community.  Every six months when I open the door for new enrollment, people join because they decide it’s important to work on their personal and spiritual growth.

They also join because they aren’t creating what matters most to them. A lot of writers become Inspired Creator Community members; they aren’t writing and want to actually “be” writers and write consistently.

Whether they are writers or not, the members of the Inspired Creator Community start out believing they are stuck and feeling tired of not going after their dreams. They may simply want a better life or to feel healthier and happier. They realize they’re not achieving their potential or their purpose, so they decide to “work on themselves.” They join the Inspired Creator Community to grow personally and spiritually.

Why? They want to create what matters most to them.

Life Gets in the Way

Then, they let life get in the way. They send me emails before a session saying they can’t attend because work is crazy, family issues require their attention, or they’re dealing with other people’s problems. Sometimes, after they miss a session, members tell me they didn’t feel well, weren’t in a good emotional space, scheduled a doctor’s appointment at the same time, or had something else going on that made it impossible to show up.

That means creating what matters most to them, such as writing and publishing a book, doesn’t actually mean that much to them. It’s not as important as they say. If it was, they’d show up for program sessions and learn to “be someone” who writes consistently.

I have another program—the Nonfiction Writers’ University. Most people join because they want support for writing and publishing their nonfiction books. These projects are near and dear to their hearts—or so they say, and most believe becoming authors fulfills their purpose. But they aren’t writing or doing the things that help them get published.

Then they don’t show up for group Author Coaching sessions, where they can get their questions answered and receive the support they need and desire. Like members of the Inspired Creator Community, they find many reasons (excuses) to not attend the live sessions…and to write consistently.

Therefore, one must assume writing doesn’t matter to them as much as they claim. And they aren’t as committed to being writers as they say.

Schedule What Matters

I get it. Life life’s.

Sometimes a member can only see the doctor or schedule the repairman during one of my program’s live sessions. But the only way to actually make time for what really matters is to make time.

I don’t say that without understanding that you sometimes have circumstances in your life that make it hard—maybe even impossible—to do the things you say are important. But if these things truly were important, you’d make time. You’d schedule them into your life. You’d put them on your calendar and work around them.

That’s how you know something matters—you make time. You commit to it. You choose to make it a priority.

What you Value is Important

Sometimes people think their personal and spiritual growth shouldn’t take precedence. The same could be said of writing a book. Maybe you’ve been told that other things should come first, like helping solve people’s problems, work tasks, or family commitments.

If you believe that, then you also believe that what you value is not as important as these other things. You think you are not as important, nor are your writing and publishing dreams and goals. You believe what you value and desire is not as important.

That’s just not true.

Perhaps you feel powerless to direct your attention to what you say matters; you believe your circumstances prevent you from writing. You don’t believe you can stand in your power and create circumstances that allow you to put time and energy into your writing projects and career.

That makes you a victim of your circumstance. Victims feel powerless. In this case, you feel powerless to change your circumstances into ones that allow you to write.

What you value is important. If you value others more than yourself, you will always put their needs and desires first. You have to value yourself. Then you will value the things that are important to you enough to make time for them.

Make Time for What Really Matters

I was in an enormously time-intensive personal growth program for four years. It offered live coaching sessions once or twice per week and required completion of extensive homework assignments, including hours of weekly video replays.

I was busy, but I made time for everything. If I fell behind, I caught up on the weekends. I went through that program eight times, completed every homework assignment, watched every video, and showed up live or watched replays of every session seven of those times.

Did I have time to do this? No. Were there other things that seemed more important sometimes or demanded my attention? Of course.

I always made time because my personal growth mattered to me. I knew that only by working on myself would I succeed in all areas of my life.

When I joined the program, I had a failing marriage. My business was making no money. My writing career had stalled out. I fixed all that by making the time for what really mattered, which was my personal growth.

Ultimately, what mattered was being happy and loving my life. So, I made time to create that.

My husband had a demanding job. He worked 60 hours a week. He attended the same program for two rounds and rarely missed a session. He didn’t do the homework assignments, and, therefore, didn’t get quite as much out of the program as he could have. But he prioritized the live sessions and showed up even if it meant working after dinner to make up the missed hour from his normal workday.

Work previously had always come first. But he committed and made the time because what mattered to him was getting unstuck, improving our marriage, and being happier. As a result, he created those things he valued.

Prioritize What Matters

Maybe personal growth isn’t the thing that matters to you. Maybe you want to write a nonfiction book, become an author, and develop a business around your book.

Whatever it is that matters, put it first. Prioritize it. Make it THE most important thing.

If you think you can’t do that because you don’t have the time, think again.

Consider my husband… He made time for that personal growth program. So did I.

When I decide to write a book, I make time. I prioritize that activity even though my schedule seems full. Why? Because it matters to me.

4 Ways to Make Time for What Matters

How do you make time for what really matters? Here are four ways to do so that don’t involve typical advice, like “put it on your calendar.”

One, get clear on what really does matter to you, and put that first. Schedule everything else around it just as if you had scheduled a doctor’s appointment. You then schedule other things around that doctor’s appointment, because you feel the appointment is important. If it’s important, you prioritize it.

Two, be someone who’s committed. Commit to making time for what really matters to you. Someone committed does what they say they will do, no matter what.   No excuses. No reasons for not doing it. No questions about whether to do it today or not. This requires an identity shift.

Three, be self-integral. That means keep your promises to yourself.  This also requires an identity shift.

Commitment comes with self-integrity. A committed person keeps promises to themselves. If you say, “I promise or commit to do what matters to me—writing daily,” then you do it. Follow through. If it’s important, don’t break your promise to yourself.

More often than not, people keep the promises they make to others, but they don’t keep the ones they make to themselves. They have integrity with other people. When it comes to themselves, they don’t have integrity.

Four, choose to make time for what really matters. Ultimately, it all comes down to your choice about how you spend the time you have each day.

Where are you choosing to put your time? If you want time to do what matters—write, don’t put all your time into watching the news or gossiping about other people. Don’t spend three hours reading a novel or binge-watching a show on Netflix when what you say matters to you could be done in part of that time.

How much time would you have for writing if you stopped doing activities that really don’t matter to you at all? A lot.

There are always activities you can eliminate or reduce the time you spend on to make time for what matters to you…if it really matters.

No Excuses

I challenge you to stop making excuses. Your reasons for why you can’t make time for what really matters to you are thinly disguised excuses. Do what you say you want to do—write. Spend time on activities you say really matter to you–writing, publishing, revising or editing, finding contractors to help you self-publish, or meeting with an Author Coach. Make the time; find the time.

Be a person who makes time for what matters—not who makes excuses. Do that, and you’ll never have any regrets. At the end of your life, you will know that you made time for what you truly value.

Do you make time for what matters—your writing and career as an author? Tell me in a comment below. Also, please share this post with a writer who would benefit from reading it.

Image courtesy of mhyimge.