The Plan Through Scheduling

Scheduling works. Planning out your week for writing, journaling, reading does work. Like everything, however, it requires a focus on self-discipline. If you are deciding to become a writer, beyond a hobby, there is nothing more critical than discipline. Writing is unlike any other job, may an artist, where you don't have a team working on a project. It's all you. Your words, your style, your composition of an idea. If you are not focusing yourself to complete this then you won't get past paragraph #1.

In the first week of hardcore scheduling I have found it does 2 primary things. The first is that it helps you plan out your week and helps you avoid pitfalls of laziness. The second thing it does is when you are looking at the current day, you can see if you actually completed what you had planned the day before. Self shame if you don't. Especially if you are writing fiction for publishing, you are at your own pace and at your own productivity rate. This is not easy.

Scheduling out 1 hour a day, 5 hours a week, 1,000 words a session. The more you do it the more it becomes a routine and less work. Instead of plopping down on the couch with a beer and snack, get a journal in your hand, turn the TV off and record your daydreams for an hour. Writing requires you to actually write and write often. How you figure out how you are going to make the change and integrate a new level of productivity is up to you. Some are motivated more than others and it's easy to bust out of the gate... but can you finish the marathon?

Time to turn the page.