Find More Hours To Write: Try a Time Audit

I’ll be honest, my writing life came to a screeching halt last week. My oldest son was home from college last week—his first visit since starting school in the fall. It was tremendous fun to see him and worth every second of the chaos it piled onto an already packed calendar.

I don’t regret a second of the time I spent with him—it wasn’t nearly enough, in fact, but did I really need to take three trips to the grocery store? Could a better shopping list have gifted me an extra hour or two to write last week? Maybe!

This got me thinking about time. With so many activities vying for our attention (some more worthwhile than others) how do we secure hours enough to get our stories written?

A well-lived life, to me, is one that manages to balance relationships, creative pursuits, and meaningful work. Before I go further, I want to acknowledge that not every day or season can be balanced. Illness, grief, financial instability and a host of other possibilities wreak havoc on balance. What I’m exploring here is a means to achieving a lifetime of balance. That lifetime, of course, is constructed with building blocks made of our days.

This reflection, as well as a thought-provoking exchange with a book coaching client, inspired me to think about ways a time audit could help writers (and creatives of any kind) meaningfully assess the tasks, obstacles, and distractions (time thieves) that pull them away from their work. A thorough time audit can help prioritize (or deprioritize) the billion moving pieces in a week.

What is a time audit and how can it help?

In her book 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, time management expert Laura Vanderkam makes the case that time scarcity may not be as substantial in our lives as we think. In reevaluating the way we spend our time, we can often find ways to achieve the balance I described above without significant sacrifices.

Vanderkam shows that a time audit, a mindful attempt to capture data detailing the way we spend a typical day, is an invaluable tool that helps us understand where our time is going.

Most experts suggest devoting a week to this exercise. While I wholeheartedly agree with this advice, I admit, sometimes a shortage of time (I know, I know) requires I conduct an abbreviated audit—still, the findings are telling!

A week-long study of a typical string of days reveals patterns. It shows how throughout the day energy can ebb and flow. It might indicate hours of the day when loved ones or colleagues require more of our attention. It also highlights our most vulnerable hours, when time thieves boldly steal from us.

How It Works

  

Identify a typical week on your calendar and use it to begin mining your data. In your journal or a notebook, track, in in 15- or 30-minute increments, the details of your day. Or, use this helpful spreadsheet Laura Vanderkamp designed for this very purpose.   

At the end of the week, look at this data with an objective eye. This is not an opportunity to judge yourself harshly. This is not an exercise designed to elicit shame. Rather, look at your data with the cool objective eye of a scientist and determine what it means. What do you notice?

1. What time of day are you most productive?
2. What time of day does your energy wane?
3. When are you most likely to be interrupted?
4. What are your longest hours of uninterrupted time?
5. What activities do you do to avoid writing?
6. What hours are you most likely to write?

Data Not Drama

What I love about a good time audit is its neutrality. When we see the facts on a simple spreadsheet, there’s no denying what’s there. All the hand-wringing and self-reproach can finally stop. Digging into data helps us to assess, objectively, whether there is time to write or not and whether the obstacles we’ve identified can be removed.

Here’s what I do next:

• Grab three markers. 
• In red, circle adulting tasks that must be tended to (working, grocery shopping, paying bills). 
• In green, circle the activities you could have opted out of but wouldn’t have missed for the world (sitting with a sick friend, a walk with your partner, time in your flower garden). 
• In blue, circle tasks and activities that are neither necessary nor replenishing (arguing with strangers on the internet, cleaning out a junk drawer that’s been untouched for years, complaining for an hour that there’s not enough time to write).  

Assess Your Audit

Here’s where the fun begins. Look at the data to find more time to write!

🔴Study the items in red. Which of these can be outsourced? If grocery shopping swallows a surprising bite out of your week, consider condensing trips, hiring a grocery delivery service, or asking another family member for help. Spending too much time preparing meals? Is there someone else in the household who might enjoy this task? Or maybe batch cooking on the weekends might help. Some of the items here can’t be outsourced. It may not be in our budget or we may live alone. But think creatively about these tasks as well. How might they be performed more efficiently?

🟢Observe all that green and feel good about it. After all, these activities are the reason we’re here. Note how many hours of writing are (or aren’t) tracked in this section. While we don’t want to eliminate these lovely hours, consider whether any would benefit from being inserted in a different time of day. For instance, if yoga energizes you and 2:00 is when your energy wanes, consider moving your practice to this slot instead of your 6:00 slot when you’re sharp and most creative.

🔵Look at what’s in blue. What percentage of your time does it consume? How can you eliminate or minimalize the sorts of events/tasks/time killers that pop up here? Before you pull out your blue pen, don’t be too quick to sheepishly circle the hour spent watching Netflix or scrolling your phone. Instead, ask, did this recharge me? While mindless consumption of anything is problematic, relaxation, whatever that means to you, is an integral part of living a life in balance. Relaxation is not a waste of time.

Observe all that green and feel good about it. After all, these activities are the reason we’re here. Note how many hours of writing are (or aren’t) tracked in this section. While we don’t want to eliminate these lovely hours, consider whether any would benefit from being inserted into a different part of your day. For instance, if yoga energizes you and 2:00 is when your energy wanes, consider doing your practice then instead of at 6:00, which might be a better time to write.

Payday!

Do the math. It’s payday! Count up the number of hours in blue as well as any red lines you’ve determined can be outsourced. The total number of hours you count is equal to the number of hours you’ve found to write!

If this number makes your happy, I’m ecstatic for you. Go write! If the number is disheartening, I get it. I’ve absolutely been there too. Not every season can be as creative as we’d like. But, even a found 15-minutes adds up over a week.

Take It to the Bank

Just like any windfall (even a tiny one), it’s easy to squander these new riches. And those time thieves, having caught word of your good fortune, are lurking. To protect your time, think of your calendar as a reputable bank where you can hold and invest your time. Schedule your writing time there and honor this appointment like you do any others.

Tip: if you found a bunch of hours by eliminating blue activities, you might discover they’re nearly all in the early morning or late in the day when you’re not in a creative headspace. Try it for a few days, you might be surprised, but if writing during this time proves too difficult, go to bed early instead and wake up earlier, refreshed, and use that time to write instead.

Some calendars are more flexible than others, but creative scheduling is a game changer for many writers.

How do you find time to write? Tell us about it in the comments below.