Reading time: About 2 minutes
Do you know how much time to spend writing? Or do you mainly feel guilty about not spending enough?
I’m going to say something controversial here…
The myth of the eight-hour writing day
Most writers, especially troubled or blocked ones, spend way too much time writing.
Or, trying to write.
For some reason, we’ve been hoodwinked into thinking that the eight-hour work day is some sort of immutable standard.
If we don’t work for eight hours, we figure we’re being lazy, or slacking off or not showing nearly enough commitment.
But who says eight hours is some sort of magical number?
In fact, society used to believe that 10- to 16-hour workdays were both normal and necessary. And in the early 19th century, factory workers started calling for shorter, more humane working hours.
The first major push for an eight-hour work day came from British reformer Robert Owen, who in the early 1800s advocated for “eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.”
Then, in 1914, in the U.S., the Ford Motor Company instituted the eight-hour day and doubled worker pay, which led to increased productivity and profits and influenced other employers to follow suit.
But more than a hundred years later, we act as though eight hours is the only reasonable standard. Why?
The historical perspective
We now understand that some 1.8 million years ago, hunter gatherers worked roughly three to five hours a day to sustain themselves.
Could we survive working a similarly “slack” schedule? Respected journalist and book author Oliver Burkeman (Four Thousand Weeks), thinks we can, especially if we’re creative or knowledge workers.
He argues: “Charles Darwin worked for two 90-minute periods in the morning, then an hour later on; the mathematician Henri Poincaré from 10 am till noon then 5 pm till 7 pm.”
He adds, “The same approximate stretch features in the daily routines of Thomas Jefferson, John le Carré and many more.”
The sweet spot for productivity
The number Burkeman settles upon? Four hours a day.
Social psychologist Ron Friedman picks an even smaller number. For him, three hours a day is plenty. Most people, he says, “typically have a window of about three hours where we’re really, really focused.”
My view is even more extreme.
Start small — really small
I think most people (I’m excluding experienced, full-time writers here) should be satisfied with no more than one hour a day for writing.
But wait, there’s more.
If you haven’t yet built the writing habit, even one hour is still way too much.
Learning to write is like learning to exercise. You wouldn’t start running with a 10-km race and no training. Nor should you start writing that way.
Instead, begin with just 15 minutes.
Yes, I know it sounds like a ridiculously small amount of time. But think about it this way:
If it sounds easy and non-threatening, you’re far more likely to do it and far less likely to procrastinate about it.
And when you’re writing for your 15 minutes, try to write as quickly as you can, without worrying about quality.
(You’ll have the chance to address quality later, when you’re editing.)
The surprising math of consistency
If you can write 300 words a day during your daily 15 minutes and do that every weekday for the next year, you’ll accumulate some 70,000 words — enough for a book.
And, by the way, my calculations assume you’ll take Saturdays and Sundays off and four weeks of holidays as well.
We don’t need to drive ourselves like machines or monsters in order to write.
Consider spending LESS time writing and more time accomplishing other tasks — and having more fun, too.
If you liked this post, you’ll also like How to return to writing after a slip.
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Need some help developing a better, more sustainable writing or editing routine? Learn about my three-month accountability program called Get It Done. There is turn-over each month, and priority will go to those who have applied first. You can go directly to the application form and you’ll hear back from me within 24 hours.
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My video podcast last week addressed how to achieve more cohesion with your writing. You can watch the video or read the transcript, and you can also subscribe to my YouTube channel.
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Once you’ve set aside time to spend writing, how long do you typically write for? We can all learn from each other, so please, share your thoughts with my readers and me in the comments section, below. If you comment on today’s post (or any others) by June 30/25, I’ll put you in a draw for a digital copy of my first book, 8 1/2 Steps to Writing Faster, Better. To enter, 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!)
