Finding time to Write Your Book With a Busy Schedule

One question I often get is "how am I supposed to find time to write my book when I am already so busy?"

​​ As a busy woman I completely get it. When I first set out to write my book I had NO time to get it done.

At the time,​​ I was working a full-time job, a part-time job, taking care of my two young daughters and going to school full time. For years I allowed my busy schedule to be an excuse. The problem is that my desire to become an author never died down. Every time that goal called out to me I tried to figure out ways to make it happen.​ 

​​One thing I learned through this process is how to make time for what matters.The truth is we all have the same number of hours in a day, but how we chose to use them is what really matters. I deemed that my book writing goal was a priority and when I made that statement I never looked back.  Today I want to share some of the strategies that have been successful for my busy clients to get their book written:

 

1. Take a retreat. Just you or maybe you and another friend who wants to write vs. a friend who wants to have fun doing things on the retreat. You’ll have hours and even a day or two to just work on your book. Such bliss.
2. Take a mini-retreat at a local café or the library. Again, more hours for creation and for some reason, having either food or published books nearby is enough encouragement to keep you in your seat writing.
3. During your scheduled writing time, only write. Don’t look at email, or jump onto social media. Just write.
4. Write to a prompt. Google the words “writing prompts” to come up with site after site of great single word or short phrase prompts. You will also see ones that have you write to a premise, which I don’t necessarily recommend since it may not match the topic of your book, but the shorter prompts can take you to places in your topic you’ve never considered. Prompts also have a way of loosening up your creativity, allowing you to write more freely. This is a good thing.
5. Write with friend. You can hold each other accountable and reading what you wrote and hearing what your friend wrote can also be motivational.
6. Celebrate! Every session is a celebration because you moved your book writing forward. But you can also set some significant goals, like a major word count, and once reached, celebrate big time. This offers you lots of encouragement and you’ll write faster and more often just for the reward. This actually happens with writers.
   
7. Show up on social media at least 15 minutes less each day so you create space in which to write.
8. Schedule 15 minutes of writing time in your daily calendar as though it were an appointment.
9. Show up and write during that scheduled time—by hand, on your laptop, or your tablet
10. Wake up an hour earlier
11. Cut down your tv watching time
12. Assign other tasks to family and friends freeing up more of your time
13. Write when you’re at your productivity peak meaning you’re alert, focused and least likely to get pulled into a million different things

I also did a video on this very topic and wanted to share this with you as well Finding Time To Write Your Book While Busy

*or you can click the video on top of this post!

Chose today to take some of these strategies and apply them in your life and watch how reaching your goals instantly feels more attainable!​​​​