How Do You Do It All?

We all have a million things going on in our lives that butt in on our writing time. Work, family, chores, blogging and even time we spend trying to "build a platform" as a writer. Personally, when my writing is going great it means I'm not blogging at all and my house is a mess.  


Lately, both of my blogs heave gone black for the most part. I even started thinking about letting my book review blog go. Seriously, I cannot believe I was even considering it. My book blog is something I love but the time it takes to read and review books has been taking a back seat to my writing time. 


The voice in my head is telling me I have to give my entire focus to my writing and let the blog go. Another part reminded me that there are writers just as busy or busier than me who somehow do it. So, how? 


That's when I got the bright idea to actually schedule out my days - at least 1 whole week - to see where does my time actually go and when could I reclaim time for writing and blogging. 


I put in my workout times, commuting, work hours, my Saturday trip to the Farmer's Market, etc. What I discovered is that I have more time than I thought and I'd been wasting it by not realizing how all that time could add up. 


I've now plugged in blogging and writing time during lunch and after dinner. I even scheduled time with my husband. That might sound weird, but I want to give it 2 weeks or so of following a hardcore schedule and see what I can accomplish. So, I've warned the husband that for now we have specific scheduled times for our hikes, movies, etc and that he has to work around my schedule. 


We'll see how that works. :) 


In the meantime, I've set a few goals for my book blog. If I can't hit them in the next 1-2 months then I'm going to say goodbye to it being anything other than a few times a month review post. 


Priorities. Yep. 


So, have you ever plotted out all of our "stuff" to find out where you really spend your time and where you could add in writing time? I think it was a really helpful exercise and I highly recommend it. I think you'll be surprised by what you find. 


Just sit down with a day planner or online calendar and block out EVERYTHING. Driving time, dinner, lunch, laundry. Set times for everything and then see if you can keep up with it for a week. Then look at how it might have helped your writing production. Let me know how it goes!