5 Steps to Protect Your Writing Time

You’ve done some trial and error and figured out when your best time for writing is, you’ve planned out a writing schedule and written these times into your planner. So, now what?

As with anything in life, having a writing schedule will only serve us well if we stick to it. And, also as with anything else, sometimes that can be a challenge.

Because there will always be things that threaten to interfere with our writing. There will always be day jobs, housework, kids, family obligations…the list is never-ending.

But just because life has distractions doesn’t mean we can’t mitigate those distractions and find ways to maintain our writing schedules in spite of them.

So how do we protect our writing time from interruptions? I’ve outlined 5 steps below to help you get started.

1. Decide Your Writing is Important

This step is perhaps the most important, which is why I included it first. If you don’t take your writing seriously and believe it is important, no one else will. How can we expect family and friends to respect our writing time if we don’t?

Deciding our writing is a priority and that it matters is a matter of mindset, and it can take some serious effort to get to the point where we automatically place value on our writing.

For starters, we need to own the title of writer. We have to recognize that just because we aren’t published—yet—our writing is still valuable. Sit down with a pen and piece of paper and write out the ways your writing is important and valuable to you. These don’t need to be earth-shattering reasons. Any way that your writing gives you joy or meaning, even if it’s small, is important. Write it all down and keep the list somewhere you can see it regularly. Remind yourself of these reasons any time you begin to doubt that your writing time is important.

I promise, once you get yourself into the mindset of viewing your writing as important, it will be a lot easier to commit to your writing schedule.

2. Set Writing Goals

Once you’ve decided your writing is important, once you’ve owned the title of writer, and you’ve committed to protecting your writing time, the next most important thing to do is set some writing goals.

Without goals, our writing time can easily be derailed out of aimlessness. If you sit down at your computer ready to write but with no clue of what you’re working on, you won’t accomplish much. It’s important to have some writing goals to determine what we’re going to do during our writing time.

Your goals can be as big or as small as you want. Do you want to finish a first draft in 90 days? Do you want to write a short story? Do you want to finish your query letter and start sending out your manuscript? Whatever your goals are, write them down and be clear on them. Set some deadlines. All of this can be changed or updated, but give yourself somewhere to start.

I like to set yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals for my writing. I’m a HUGE proponent of using a yearly planner for all aspects of my life and writing is no different. At the beginning of the year, I sit down and take stock of where I’m at with my writing and where I’d like to be by the end of the year and write it all down in my planner. I’ll be honest—very rarely do I accomplish all of my writing goals by the end of the year. Some of them simply take longer than I’d expected, and some of them change. But it gives me something to strive towards and a starting point.

At the start of each month, I look back at the previous month and see where I’m at. How did I do on my goals? Was I too ambitious, or did my goals change? For example, this month, my goal was to draft 5,000 words per week in my new manuscript. But, within the first week, I realized I need to take a step back and work on my outline more. So, my original goal for the month won’t be met, but that’s okay. Because instead of giving up, I replaced that goal. I still have a goal, and I still have direction for my daily writing sessions. And that’s what’s important.

The last step of setting my goals is that I set weekly and daily goals for my writing. Looking at my monthly goal, I determine each week what I need to do to accomplish that goal and then break it down into daily goals.

The daily goals are where your momentum will come from. Accomplishing these small goals daily will add up to bigger results monthly and yearly. And looking at smaller goals feels a whole lot less intimidating than those big yearly ones. So get into the habit of setting your big goals but then breaking them down into manageable steps that will add up to big progress.

3. Use a Planner

I would be completely lost without my planner. I enjoy sitting down for an hour every Sunday evening with my planner and mapping out my week, using colored pens and stickers to make it look pretty. You don’t have to get this involved—a simple calendar will work. But I’ve found that writing my goals on a monthly/weekly/daily basis helps me maintain my focus. Something about checking off tasks each day helps me feel accomplished, and if I don’t complete my goal and can’t check it off, there’s a little stab of guilt that I was a slacker.

Whatever method you use, make sure it works for you. Find something that will help you feel accomplished when you meet your daily goals and will keep you accountable if you didn’t meet the goals you’d written.

4. Learn to Say No

No is a hard word for me. I enjoy saying yes to people when they ask something of me, and I have a very hard time saying no without a valid reason. So telling someone I can’t do something because I have a writing block scheduled is hard. But it became a lot easier once I learned to treat my writing time like a standing appointment.

One thing that’s made this easier for me is scheduling my writing times when I’m least likely to be tempted by another offer. For example, when I wrote in the mornings before work, it was unlikely a friend would call me up and ask to get together at 7:00 in the morning. When I’m writing on my lunch hour, there’s not much that might interfere other than my total lack of motivation. Sometimes things interfere that I can’t control, such as doctor’s appointments or needing to run an important errand on my lunch, but for the most part, these times are distraction-free.

But if your best writing time is at a time that is prone to distractions or if there really is no good time that would be without distraction, honoring your writing time by setting boundaries is important. The rule I use for myself is that I can say yes to a distraction only if I can find time to reschedule my writing time. For example, if a friend wants to meet for coffee on my lunch hour when I usually write, I might say yes, but only if I schedule an extra writing slot that evening or the next day. This allows me to be flexible and still open to fun things that might come up, but also honors my writing by recognizing it is important and needs to be rescheduled like any other obligation.

Saying no also means saying no to ourselves sometimes. There are days when I have little motivation to write or when a trip to Target on my lunch sounds better than sitting at a table staring at my manuscript. Forcing yourself to take your writing seriously and not skip out on your writing time just because you’re not in the mood to write is the only way you’ll make progress with your writing goals.

The nice thing about writing is there’s no one standing over your shoulder telling you to write. The bad thing is…there’s no one standing over your shoulder telling you to write. It’s all up to you. If it’s important to you, fight through the procrastination and the desire to slack off during your writing time.

5. Create a Writing Routine

We’ve all heard about the crazy routines some famous writers have adhered to for themselves. Some have to write with certain pens, or in certain places, or after doing some crazy hour-long routine.

I promise, your writing routine doesn’t need to be anything crazy. But it helps to have some sort of routine to signal to your brain it’s time to write.

My routine prior to COVID was to write on my lunch hour at Starbucks. This wasn’t the cheapest option, but my wallet and I made peace with the fact that the cost of a daily cappuccino was worth it given that Starbucks proved to be my most productive place. Something about sitting down at a table with my Starbucks cup told my brain it was writing time. I’m the kind of person who works best in a public setting—something about the pressure of having others nearby motivates me to actually get some work done. Also, I work best when I have a set amount of time to accomplish my goal. Knowing I had to return to work in an hour gave me the motivation to stay focused on my writing task.

Your writing routine can be as simple as you want it to be, but try to come up with something that will tell your brain it’s “writing time.” This is especially important if you’re writing from home as we need something to tell our brains we’ve switched from “Netflix time” to “writing time.” It can be as simple as sitting at your desk with a certain playlist, or a favorite coffee mug you use only when writing, or maybe a special pen you prefer to write with. Or it can be more complex. Whatever you decide your routine will be, make sure it works for you and puts you into writing mode.

Bonus Tip: Give Yourself Grace

Committing to a writing routine can be challenging. With so many outside factors vying for our attention, it’s understandable we’ll falter at times. We might miss a day of writing, or we might miss an entire week or month. And that’s okay. It happens. The most important thing is that we recommit, refocus, and don’t give up.

At the end of the day, we’re writers. Something might pull you away from your writing, but as long as we keep coming back to our writing and don’t throw in the towel, we’re successful. Give yourself permission to be human and then get back to your writing when you’re able to.

How do you protect your writing time? What are some habits you’ve developed to tell yourself it’s times to write?