I love a good challenge! And this year I’ve worked with various methods using this formula that have helped me make leaps of progress in a very short amount of time.
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My favorite “shorter” schedule than my original twenty-four hours is from 4:00am – 10:00pm, an eighteen hour push. My last goal I reached about an hour before, but it’s a good length. This time period is long enough to stay focused and yet still reasonable enough to get a normal night’s sleep.
- Intentions
- What is a specific idea for this challenge?
- Goal.
- What steps will I follow to meet this goal?
- Participation
- How have I shared with others that I’m in?
- Prep
- What do I need for the day
- How will I set up my writing area
- Food and breaks
- How will I stay focused
- Schedule
- Create an hourly schedule that includes a couple short breaks (15-30 min) and at least one longer break (2-3 hrs)
- Attempt to choose a day free from errands, etc.
Goals for project
Choose what your big goal is. Most of the time I set aside something Id like to accomplish in the span of a week. Yours might be shorter or longer, depending on how much you usually work on the project. Sometimes I want to clarify a few scenes in my novel and I spend time revising. For the majority of this year, I’ve used my time to finish a draft or set up the bare bones of a book that used to reside just in my head. Last week I strung together ideas for an art book series. There’s a lot I can cover in about 15 hours of work (breaks throughout).
I might not be able to write a book, but I can hit nine chapters. I can outline a plan and create detailed structure for a new book or an idea that I’ve only been mulling over. Then I finally have something on the page.
Snacks and scheduled breaks
I make sure to take scheduled breaks using the Pomodoro technique (90 min) and a long 2-3 hour break in the afternoon. This gets very challenging around 7:00 at night because I am not a night owl, but this usually means coffee with dinner and some upbeat music.
Reflection and goals
I love being able to fit a lot of very hard work into a single day, especially if I’ve been busy because it hits some of my long-term goals as well as saving me time during the week. This was especially useful when I had my writing, art markets, and subbing all at the same time.
One of the ways to keep up with my goal is to write to the side of the schedule: Have I written three stories yet? Did I pass ten pages? Did I find the solution to that first issue? That way it reminds me to stay on task and at the same time motivates me to keep going because I’m actually following my progress.
Celebrate
This is important. Choose something fun for the next day or weekend. Get ice cream. Watch a new movie. Go play frisbee golf. I’m not very good when it comes to celebrating my success because I just want to keep going. I usually think that whatever I got done wasn’t enough and maybe if I push it for another day or two I can really reach my goal. That completely defeated the purpose of the finish line. It’s like I ran the marathon and decided that I needed to run faster in order for it to count.
Conclusion
However you choose to conquer your writing hurdles, make it your own! It will only work if you actually take the time out to put things on paper! Writing is beautiful, and though it might not yet look like that at the end of this exercise, you are well on your way!
Encouraging from afar,
Hannah Marie.
