Creating a Schedule and Guarding It Ruthlessly

I’m happy to report that the last two weeks have been incredibly productive! In terms of personal work, I’ve created more in the last two weeks than I have in the last ten years. Using the tools I’ve described in previous posts, I’ve forced myself to follow what’s perhaps the most important aspect of working on a project: sticking to a schedule.

Duh. It makes sense. All companies do this (at least in theory- oftentimes schedules become “fluid”). But for after-hours passion projects, it often seems that the schedule is the first thing to be ignored.

I’ve read recently in various sources about how crucial it is to stick to a schedule, but the most helpful of them was Paul Silvia’s “How to Write A Lot” (a book on academic writing, but which proposes many helpful tools) and “On Writing” by Stephen King (King’s appropriately-titled book on the craft of writing). Both books propose that foremost in importance for any writer (and I broaden this to artist, or any creator on a mission) is creating a schedule and sticking to it. Coincidentally, both authors happen to write during their early morning hours, but they encourage the reader to set their schedule to whatever times work best for them.

How best to set and quantify the schedule? Silvia quantifies his goal as a scheduled, uninterrupted block of time for a few hours in the morning, every morning. King quantifies his goal as 2000 words per day, and if that takes him into the afternoon hours, so be it- he doesn’t leave his desk until the goal is reached. In King’s case, he does it 365 days a year (easy to see how he’s so prolific).

Both writers talk about the importance of guarding this time ruthlessly from any outside distraction. They will not allow any appointments or commitments to be scheduled during this time. They do not do anything else during this time. The door to the office shuts and remains shut (and aside from bathroom breaks, I’m guessing) they don’t come out ‘til they meet their goal for the day.

These hours are protected ruthlessly. It’s set aside for writing, and writing is all they do with this time. Of course, “writing” could just as easily be “drawing”, “coloring”, “lettering”, etc., and in my case, will be, soon enough. But for now, I too am writing.

I’ve got a fulltime day job, so I’ve been following this procedure in my early mornings before I report for work. I’ve been getting up really early (6 a.m., or earlier), and after coffee/tea and a quick breakfast, I shower or splash water on my face and sit down to my computer. If I find myself on autopilot, drifting towards the google chrome button, I’m reminded by Stayfocusd that wasting time on the Internet is not allowed right now, and “SHOULDN’T I BE WORKING” (see the last entry on this blog). I set my “FocusBooster” timer, open my google doc, and start typing away.

I’m proud to say that as of now, I’m on track- I don’t yet owe Jordan any of my money.
More on that in a couple days...