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Write more consistently by fixing your system, not your willpower. Here are six habits, some backwards, that keep writers showing up.
One of my clients wrote every day for 43 days in a row, and then she stopped for five months.
When she finally came back, she apologized at length and called the whole thing a discipline problem.
But her habit didn’t collapse because she ran out of willpower. It collapsed because she’d built the whole thing out of willpower. Here’s the problem: willpower is the least reliable material available to any writer.
Writers ask me about consistency more than just about any other topic. The standard advice has often failed the people who are asking. Write every day, set a schedule: that’s fine as far as it goes, but it’s insufficient.
Here are six ways to help yourself write more consistently. Some of them will sound backwards at first.
1-Stop while it’s still going well
Writers usually quit for the day when they hit the wall. That’s the worst possible moment to stop, because tomorrow you’ll remember the wall, and your brain will suggest, reasonably, that you go do the laundry instead.
Stop earlier than that, while you still know what comes next.
Better yet, leave a mess behind you on purpose: a half-finished sentence or a section you were itching to complete. Then tomorrow you won’t be starting, you’ll be continuing, and continuing is much easier to talk yourself into.
How you ended your last session determines your consistency far more than how you begin the next one.
2-Lower the floor instead of raising the ceiling
Your daily minimum should be so small that it embarrasses you: one sentence, or five minutes.
Clients argue with me about this because 90 minutes a day feels serious while one sentence feels like cheating. But 90 minutes is a promise you’ll break by Thursday, and a broken promise costs you more than the extra pages are worth.
A low floor protects you on the days when everything goes sideways: when you have a sick child or a four-hour meeting that should have been an email. On those days, you write your one sentence, and you remain a person who writes.
3-Leave a breadcrumb before you go
The blank page frightens people because it asks them to make a dozen decisions before they’ve had any coffee.
So, make those decisions the night before, and end every session by writing one line to the person who will sit down tomorrow: “Next: the bit where the funding falls through.” That takes 10 seconds, and it removes the cold start, which is where habits usually break.
That person is groggy and hunting for an excuse to do something easier, so give them a map.
4-Never miss twice
You’ll miss days, because everyone does.
Missing one day is an accident, but missing two is the start of a story you’ll tell about yourself.
A single skipped day carries no meaning at all, but two skipped days begin to feel like evidence, and by the fourth day you’ve become the sort of person who used to write.
So, the rule is narrower than “don’t miss.” Never miss twice in a row, and treat that second day as the one worth defending.
5-Count days, not words
Word counts usually punish thinking.
Spend a morning untangling a muddled argument and your tracker will report a loss, which tells you more about the tracker than about the morning.
Track sessions instead, and mark the calendar every time you show up. What you want is a visible record of appearances, because your sense of who you are follows the evidence. A row of checkmarks on a wall calendar is hard to argue with at 6 a.m.
6-Anchor to a habit, not to a clock
“I’ll write at 9 a.m.,” works beautifully until the Tuesday you have a dentist appointment at 9 a.m.
Attach your writing to something you already never skip, such as breakfast or the dog’s morning walk. I’ve never once forgotten to eat breakfast, not in 25 years of running this business, although my schedule has been rearranged by weather, family, deadlines and the Vancouver transit system.
Habits are sturdier than clocks.
The Saturday that never comes
One more thing, because it derails more long writing projects than everything above put together.
Many writers are waiting for the big empty block of time: the free Saturday, or the week off in which it’s all somehow supposed to get done.
That Saturday never arrives, and on the rare occasion something like it does arrive, you will spend it on the laundry you postponed to make room for that magical day.
The people who finish their books are writing 15 minutes at a time in the wreckage of ordinary weeks, which is less romantic and far more effective.
What it adds up to
You’re not an inconsistent person. You have an inconsistent system, and a system can be fixed in a way that a personality can’t.
Stop mid-thought, keep the floor low, leave a note for the morning and never miss twice.
After a few weeks, the calendar will tell you who you are, and it’s a more reliable judge than your memory of last Tuesday.
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A good system works even better when someone else is watching. Want to finish your book or dissertation, or simply write much faster? Join my next Get It Done program, a three-month mix of group accountability and writing coaching. I accept new members only four times a year. Registration closes Oct. 22, and the group starts Nov. 1. Learn more here.
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My video podcast last week addressed why you should consider writing your final sentence first. You can watch the video or read the transcript, and you can subscribe to my YouTube channel.
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How do you persuade yourself to write more consistently? We can all learn from each other, so please, share your thoughts with my readers and me. To share, please scroll down to the comments, directly underneath the related posts links, below. You don’t have to join Disqus to post! Read my tutorial to learn how to post as a guest. (It’s easy!)
