Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37903
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37903
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I write when I wake up. Every morning, 365 days a year, with perhaps 2% exceptions for travel days. Even then, I have written on airplanes.

I work in 90 minute cycles, for both my job and writing. I always wake up early and spend 3 hours on getting ready to start actual work, about 2:15 of that is writing, or editing, or reading. Nobody else is awake at that time.

I don't really try to "maximize my productivity", when I write I am not in a hurry to get done, I don't have a word quota to reach. I can finish a novel (with several edit passes included) in about 9 months this way, but I don't set ANY time limit of any kind on myself; I am only committed to writing until it is done. I think deadlines and quotas are a silly thing to do, for me I would only disappoint myself, for no good reason. I trust that if I keep writing I will finish it, period. No need to discourage myself by setting arbitrary milestones I fail to reach.

I do the same thing in my scientific research; I explore ideas until I am done and I judge there is no more useful work to do. Half the time, that results in something publishable; and a few times, that has been something really important.

As for how to _really_ maximize my productivity, that is just scheduling. I have cycles reserved for work, for cleaning the house, for yard work, for washing dishes or clothes, for paying bills, for our various entertainments, for everything.

We don't live a spontaneous life in this house, even the dog knows when it is time to eat or walk, to the minute. Although we can, if family or friends demand, rearrange our entertainment to allow for a simulacrum of spontaneity. And of course if emergency intrudes, we handle that by whatever means are necessary. Thus we have been (my family) for over thirty years.

The point of saying the above is that, when it comes time for me to write in the morning, Nothing else intrudes on my mind. There is nothing else I should be doing instead, nothing I need to worry won't get done if I don't do it now. It will all get done, in its time, every week or month or year.

Original score: 2