Thirty minutes a day or a page a day? Every productive writer has a different way of measuring their output. It is important. Most humans need a schedule, some sort of metric or deadline by which to ensure movement toward a goal. Without it, failure is as sure as can be.

For almost three and a half years, my measure has been thirty minutes a day. This has served me well. The outcome has been quite a few poems, several drafts of my book, and a few decent short stories, as well as a dozen notebooks. Not bad I suppose, but I want more. I sense a rut.

So… I have changed the metric to a page a day. I’ll still keep my notebooks*, these are where I do my thinking, but I want to produce a page of creative work each day. I have a hunch that with this metric I’ll do more of the work that is my highest priority. I think that over the last year or so I’ve spent too much time in my notebook, navel-gazing, and not enough time out in the wild, testing my ideas on the blank page. BTW…I also think that with this measure I’ll write more than thirty minutes a day.

I am on the cusp of another adjustment to my process. It is not the first, and it will not be the last. I’ll know the impact of the decision by Christmas.

*When Edison died there was found among his possessions thousands and thousands of notebooks. He made everyone who worked for him keep notebooks. If they didn’t, he fired them.

I want to tell you about the one thing I’ve been taught* in the past three years that has been the single most important learning in my writing life. Actually, I don’t want to tell you, I feel compelled to tell you. Like an evangelist with the gospel or a scientist with the cure, I feel like this one thing can actually save your creative life. Here it is.

Thirty minutes a day.

Whatever it is you are trying to do, there is a lot I don’t know that could really help you. However, if you are trying to write something of lasting value, start spending 30 minutes each day with your butt in a chair putting words on paper.

At first you might simply stare off into space, unsure what to write. This is fine. It is good. It is profitable. Once you have done this for a few minutes, your mind will be quiet and your pace slowed. Now, write the first thing that comes to your mind, then the second, then the third. Do this for thirty minutes for the first day. Come back the next day and do this again. Once you have something on paper that you are legitimately interested in, focus on that the following day.

Make this thirty minutes sacred. Make it the most critical thing you do each day. Soon you will find that it is the foundation. Soon you’ll be telling someone else about it just like I’m doing. Trust the process. If you do this you’ll find that one day you will have more ideas, more potential projects than you could produce in a lifetime. You’ll expand your time to an hour, then an hour and a half.

This is how the work is done.

*Thank you, Dan Barden, for bringing me to the crossroads.

I have come to believe there is a lever that drops putting a certain law into motion when I sit down to write. The simple act of putting my butt in the chair begins a reaction, a cause and effect which are very nearly as predictable as the sunrise. The elements of resistance¹ are unleashed, sent out to destroy any hope of creative momentum – a weird pain in my leg, the dog barking at someone inside the house, a knock at the door, the anti-virus on the PC pops up to start a scan, I suddenly remember that task that needs to be added to my to-do-list². I have learned that trying to produce anything of lasting value will most assuredly set off a metaphysical blitzkrieg.

The good news is that I know what this is. I recognize it, and I am able to lasso, hold it down, identify it and label it when it happens. And there is more good news. Because of this I am also able to tell you about it. If you are doing the work, then you know too that what I am speaking of is as real as can be.

So what is the solution to this phenomenon? Adjust the blinders, put your head down, and keep going. Know that you are stronger than all these. Know that what you are doing, at that very moment, is infinitely more important³. dm

¹Read the “War of Art” by Steven Pressfield

²All of these happened to me one evening this month while trying to write, all within the space of about thirty minutes.

³ Seriously, read the “War of Art” by Steven Pressfield.

No one has a time-management problem. The playing field is level. We all have the same number of hours in our day. How we use our time is a choice, and it reflects only one thing – what we believe to be our priorities. What you do have is a priority-management challenge. We all do. There are a lot of demands being made of us and we are trying to develop or maintain the discipline to write (exercise, meditate, whatever).

Know now that it is not about time, it is about priorities.

In prioritizing the demands of life, think in terms of outsourcing. It is a simple rule. Could I hire someone to do what I am about to do? If so, then it should not be at the top of my priority-management list. If it is at the top of my list, I am at risk of leaving the wildly important undone.

Here’s the fact. If I drop dead tomorrow, my spouse or kid or realtor, is going to hire a handyman to come in and knock out my entire to-do-list, plus some, in under a week. The house will look great and I’ll be dead. How hard that guy has to work will be a direct measure of my priorities in life. If I die and no handyman is needed, my priorities were jacked up.

The handyman will not take your toddler to get ice cream. He will not fly your wife to Florida for your anniversary. He will not go see your elderly grandfather. And he will not write your novel.

Prioritize accordingly. dm