When he was working on a book, Ernest Hemingway would start writing just after first light. He’d stop before he exhausted his creative energy, deciding that the best approach was to quit while “you still have your juice”.
He’d repeat the same process, day after day.
But what can modern professionals learn from the writing habits of the legendary author?
After all, it might not be practical for us to begin each day with marathon writing sessions, even if we wanted to.
If you’ve ever tried to keep at a writing schedule, you know setting writing habits is hard.
It’s a familiar story:
You have a few awesome ideas for blog content. You start out strong and publish one – perhaps, even a few – posts. You’re gaining traction.
But then something comes up.
It always does, doesn’t it?
An urgent project, common cold, or just the overwhelm that many of us struggle with these days. Modern life comes with these kinds of pressures. It seems almost impossible to find the time to do something just for you. Something that feels like it’s not compulsory.
Still, writing – and especially writing well – has the power to deliver impressive results for your business and career.
Author James Clear used the power of writing, and specifically writing habits, to attract millions of readers and launch a best-selling book. His lessons significantly shaped my own writing schedule. A good way to think of habits is that they are tools to improve our skills and produce more work, suggests Clear.
With regular writing, you can win more customers, earn credibility and build the career and business of your dreams. So much is possible when you organize your thoughts and convey your ideas clearly. Imagine the impact you could make and the people you could help.
Here’s a few tips to make sure you keep writing regularly, backed by research and advice from successful writers and entertainers.
Start Small
Let’s go back to Hemingway’s daily writing habit. What if this was the only way to write consistently? Most of us, even professional writers like myself, would never be able to sustain a writing habit. We might be able to commit to a 10-minute writing slot, though.
This is another lesson from Clear, and one he discusses deeply in this book, Atomic Habits.
The idea is that you don’t need to set daunting writing goals. Those may even push you away from writing regularly. Maybe you have 30 minutes to spare every Wednesday afternoon? Or 20 minutes on Saturday and Sunday mornings?
Look for those windows and arrive with a plan. You can, for example, choose a topic on one day and complete an outline the next. Once you’re keeping to those slots extend them or add another day.
Start Early…or Late, Just Start
Getting up early, according to conventional wisdom, comes with pursuing – and achieving – success.
That’s true for most things. One study found that morning people are more proactive and obtain better grades.
Still, that same research suggested the idea of “eveningness”, a biological tendency to perform better once the sun goes down.
So, getting up before dawn might not make sense for you. Back when I worked an office job, I started work at 6:30am. It was the only way to avoid a drawn-out commute. But it meant that writing in the morning was out of the question. I often worked on my blog during the evenings. I knew that once my three-year old was bathed and in bed, I’d have some quiet, writing time.
The trick is to identify a specific time of day – one where you have control over time – and dedicating this to your writing habit. Think of it as a standing appointment for self-improvement.
Don’t Break the Chain
Finding time to crank out a blog post now and then is easy. What’s much harder is consistently creating new content week after week.
Here’s where a method from comedian Jerry Seinfeld might provide just the motivation you need.
The story goes that Seinfeld would hang a large calendar on his wall. For every day he wrote new material, he’d draw a red X over that day. He gained momentum. And it must have been rewarding to stare at the growing line of red Xs – a visual reminder of his consistency.
And so, the goal is simple: don’t break the chain.
I tried this approach and it’s effective. There’s something satisfying about tracking your progress in this way.
And if you do break the chain, start again and begin creating a new one. After eight months of weekly blogging, my chain broke. Well, it fell apart completely. I got sick, my two small children got sick, and for a few days, nothing much got done. So now I’ve started rebuilding my chain.
“Start Small, Start Now”
You know writing can help you achieve your goals. And even if you don’t write for a living, you can carve out the time to get content out consistently.
To inspire your strategy, here’s some advice from Seth Godin. Godin is an entrepreneur and author.
In between it all, he still manages to find time to write every day:
Start small, start now
This is much better than, “start big, start later.”
One advantage is that you don’t have to start perfect.
You can merely start.
Seth Godin
Featured image credit: Photo by Tong Nguyen van on Unsplash
