Getting more writing done with less time

Time is a Tickin’ (Photo credit: im elsewhere)

Pre-motherhood, it was not uncommon for me to work well over 40 hours a week. I tried to devote at least 40 to my money making activities and then leave myself a couple dozen hours for writing. (OK, yes, some of my day job work is also writing. But I tend to think of that was work and stuff like novel and play-writing as writing.) Even with all that time, I was almost always in over my head and buried with more work than I felt like I could handle.

As discussed, my now 1 year old isn’t a big sleeper. 95% of her naps are under 30 minutes. Some are only 5 or even 7 minutes long (“That’s not a nap! That’s a long blink!”) and that “counts” and she won’t go back to sleep for the rest of the day. There’s been some improvement, ie two or three times a week a nap will stretch out to 45 minutes and we get hour long naps about 2 or 3 times a month which is a vast improvement over the situation before. But, overall, she usually only gets about a total of an hour or less of sleep during the day.

Based on my various tracking tools, I get an average of about 30-40 minutes during the day at my computer, assuming I don’t try to shower and that I sprint to my computer the second I finish the OMG I have a baby free minute! household type stuff I need to do  as soon as she goes down. That’s not even 1/10th of the amount of time I used to have and that time needs to be split between work and writing.

Which is why it may surprise you that I’m getting more writing done than ever before. 

Here’s the part you care about if you’re a writer even if kids aren’t on your radar now or ever: I have less time. Literally, much less time. But I’ve gotten smarter about how I use that time and I’ve managed to use that time more effectively.

It comes down to 5 things…

1. Being smarter about how I use my time. Looking back now, I was downright wasteful with my time before. Because I had so much time, I didn’t need to be smart about it. Now I have so little time to myself, I know how precious that time is and I make sure to use every second of it working as efficiently as possible.
2. Prioritizing. Some stuff is going to fall by the wayside. For instance, unless it’s for a paying client, I’ve listed almost nothing on eBay this year. Doing eBay listings is inefficient to do in small time bursts because of all the set-up involved (it’s much easier when I have a whole chunk of time & can bang out 300 listings in an hour). There are other things I can pick up and down throughout the day that make just as much money so they are going to get preference right now.
3. Letting things go or delegating. Instead of stressing myself out that project x or y isn’t getting done, I’m going one of two routes. If it’s the kind of thing that I can hire someone else to do for me, I’m doing it and getting it done and off my list (and my back). If it’s something I can’t delegate and isn’t that important to me, I let it go.
4. Working the second I hit my computer. Sure, there are still days when I end up bopping around on Facebook or Tumblr when I should be working but I’ve gotten much better about only doing that when I’m specifically taking a break. If I’m at my computer, I’m almost always working.
5. Better incentive to work hard. Writing is important to me. So is keeping my company running. But my daughter is the highest thing on my list and it made me rethink some things. Every second I spend working “buys” me more time with her, is how I think about it, because the money I make is money that allows me to be home with her. Why do you work? There’s probably some reason you’ve never thought to articulate before that can serve as an excellent motivator. Doing work, even if that work is on a novel or other passion project, is that much easier when you’ve got something to focus on.

Of course, typing as fast as humanly possible doesn’t hurt either! How do you make the most of the time you have?