When I first quit my day job to write full time, I was determined to have a set schedule to make sure everything got addressed. It worked pretty well during the summer, but now that we have so many more demands on our minutes, it all went to hell.
My plan was always to fit in (in no particular order):
Cleaning
Exercise
Writing
Family stuff
Marketing
My reality has been…inconsistent, to say the least. I’ve been lamenting my failure. Especially when it means the house is a hellhole and I have to spend all day Sunday cleaning it.
But I realized yesterday morning that it’s not as bad as it seems. Sure, I let the house go here and there. But that’s just because I hate cleaning, and I hate even more losing time I should be writing or relaxing to cleaning. And okay, I haven’t kept up my daily walking regimen. I didn’t walk Tuesday. Or today. In fact, I didn’t walk at all last week. But I haven’t given up totally, which is my normal MO.
The kids’ schedules dictate a lot. For example, I DO consistently do dishes all week. Except on Wednesdays. Every other day, I do them between putting kid #2 on the bus and putting kid #1 on the bus. On Wednesdays, #1 has to be at school early, which means I don’t have time for dishes, which means I don’t bother doing them when I get home. Because that’s writing time.
See? Schedule. :)
I am always telling writers that they need to find the methods that work best for them, which often means trying a lot of things, learning others’ methods, etc. So what I should do is embrace the chaos in my schedule and work around it, keeping the most important thing in mind:
Protect the writing time.
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