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Leading A Productive, Balanced And Healthy Writer’s Life.
By Michael Camarata
Which One Are You? There are those of us who are so passionate and driven to write that we tend to spend every “spare” moment of our time on writing, to the point where we often “find” extra time by neglecting other parts of our lives, such as choosing a quick meal over a healthy one, putting off simple chores, cutting down on our sleep time, and cutting back on quality time together as a family. There are those of us whose lives are so “busy” that there are always things that we need to get done, to the point where we can “never find the time” to write. Then there are the majority of us, who tend to waffle back and forth between these extremes. We drive ourselves to the point of exhaustion or until we become so overwhelmed with those other neglected tasks that need to be done that we “can’t help” but put off our writing to take care of ourselves or other things. None of these is a healthy, balanced and consistently productive approach to the writer’s life. How much time is too little to spend writing and how much time is too much? For a professional writer, who has no other job to contend with, the answer is simple. Writing is your job and if you know what is good for you, you had better be spending 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week at your writing job. But what about those of us who have a full time job besides our writing? The simple fact is that you are going to have to take some time out of your waking day to devote to writing. Since you can’t take it from your working hours, at least not if you expect to keep your job, it is all going to have to come out of your non-work (“free time”) waking hours. An 8 hour work day is 1/3 (or 33%) of a 24 hour day, giving you an even balance between sleep (8 hours), work (8 hours), and “free time” (8 hours). Using this 1/3 (or 33%) model, you can quickly determine a balanced method for how much additional time of your “free time” should be spent on (1) your writing, and how much should be spent on (2) other chores and (3) family/fun time. 1/3 (or 33%) of 8 hours (“free time”) is 2.64 hours, or 2 hours and 36 minutes. Rounding that off, If you spend 2 ½ - 3 hours a day (12 ½ - 15 hours a week) on your writing, you can maintain a balanced, productive and healthy approach to your writing life. Remember that downtime (“family/fun time) is not only crucial to your health, but just as crucial to your writing as time spent on the legal pad or at the computer writing. Getting away from the work allows your mind to process the information that you are dealing with and allows you to gain a new and fresh perspective to the work when you return to it. In fact, some of the greatest breakthroughs can come when you are away from your writing and engaged in other activities. By planning out your week in advance, scheduling your writing time just as you would your job schedule, you can avoid excuses and schedule around special events while being sure to maintain your weekly hours.
Michael Camarata is a writer and the creator and editor of CongruentSpaces.com and Congruent Spaces Magazine. Recently Michael's short short story "Martian Dreams" won the joint "Martian Summer" flash fiction contest from Open Road Media and Myouterspace.com
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Contributor's Note
As one who has a distinct tendency to fill his entire "free time" exclusively with writing projects, I wrote this as much as a reminder to myself to get away from the work and to get my life and health back in balance as I did for other writers who may be like myself.
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