Friday, March 24, 2017

How I find time to write... it is easier than I thought it would be.

Another week in the books, and we get closer to release of our first books.

A few things for you to know, to put things in perspective and to help remind myself how to manage my time:

I have a great full time job.  My publishing company is something I spend a lot of time on, but it is time when my I'm at home, and my kids are playing or asleep.

Kids, I have many :-)

How am I managing time, to get writing done?  What about coordinating art?  Web design for the site?  Outlining future products?  Writing the children's books?  Working full time?

It is surprisingly not hard.

So my day:
0600 wake up and I know I'm on a tight time frame
0605 I've awakened my school age children and have them getting dressed while I'm in the kitchen hammering out the morning breakfast (whatever that may be)
0610 I've got things cooking so its time to brush out hair for small children
0620 breakfast needs to be on the table, and children at the table and eating (or else we're running late)
0645 breakfast is done and school age kids are sent to brush teeth
0655 put same children on school bus... at this point the first part of my day is done
0700 prepare for work while caring for youngest child (some days are harder than others)
0730 make breakfast for spouse, as she will be home from her job shortly
0745 plate spouse's breakfast, play with child
0750(ish) I'm on the road to work (thankfully less than 10 minutes away)

0800 to 1630 (sometimes 1730) work with great people and do interesting things
1700 I'm home again (unless I had to travel that day, but this is a more general chronology)
1720(ish) I'm making dinner and spouse is heading to take a nap (as she only slept while smallest child napped earlier)
1750 dinner
1810 rotate children through showers/baths
1845 hopefully all children bathed and in pjs... hopefully
1900 playing with child or multiple children or watching cartoons and hanging out with the little ones
2000 put kids to bed
2010 prepare spouse's lunch for her shift
2045 wake spouse for her shift
2100 spouse to work and I begin working on writing and related activities
2345 I sleep and get an amazing 6 hours

Its those 2.75 hours a night that gets things done.  Write on projects, messages with the artists, catching up on analysis of what is going on in the respective genres I've been working in (children's books, and role-playing games).  A lot happens in this time.

I will admit that there are some deviations in this schedule... but generally this my day during the week.  So with just short of 14 hours a week spent on writing and projects related to those books, a lot gets done. That said, it still feels like more writing could get done, but I'm working on it.

Thanks for reading! Now if you will excuse me, I have a schedule to keep.  More to come soon.

https://www.facebook.com/wsquinton/


2 comments:

  1. Great schedule! Keep working! You are giving me encouragement to get back, seriously, into the writing game. Love your blog, too. Keep it up!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Henri! I sent my first response to this through Facebook then realized I probably needed a static entry here... noob mistake I suppose.

    ReplyDelete

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