Just Ten Minutes

“I’d love to write a book, but I just don’t have the time.”

I’ve heard this so many times and I am sure that for some people, it is absolutely the case that they don’t have sufficient spare time to allocate enough to write a book. However, I think for most of us we are rather more vague about how much writing time is available to us and I would wager that you definitely do have enough time to write a book and I’m going to tell you how.

During an extended coaching session with one of my favourite author clients earlier today, they explained that they wanted to write but were very busy and after a period with little opportunity to sit down and write, found that they couldn’t find the time to build up the momentum. We talked thorough some options and came up with a strategy that will help them get back into good writing habits.

They are going to allocate themselves ten minutes every day and just write for the entirety of the full ten minutes. It might be dialogue or notes towards a chapter or a snippet of the story line; whatever the output, the input will be a minimum of ten minutes of writing, daily.

The benefits of this are multi-layered for my client. Firstly and most obvious, their book is being written – yes, via piecemeal, but it is still happening. Working on their novel for ten minutes a day will keep the plot and the characters at the forefront of their mind, so even when they are not in front of their screen, they will still be mulling over scenarios and ideas. Additionally, once they are actually sat down and into their allocated ten minutes, they might find that inspiration strikes and they want to write more and for longer. Go with the flow, was my advice. I am a big believer in working on feel.

Also if you are thinking of utilising this method  yourself, bear in mind that while I have referred to those ten minutes of writing as “in front of a screen”, this is just a catch-all term and could actually mean scribbling in a notebook while you are waiting outside school for your kids, typing on your notes app or even emailing yourself with your ideas. It all counts and it’s all word count!

Please remove yourself from the idea that writing needs to be a prolonged slog where you are rooted to your laptop for days at a time. It doesn’t have to be like that at all. You can make it work for you.

Just ten minutes. Next time you find yourself mindlessly scrolling through social media, set a timer for ten minutes and write something instead. We can all pretty much find ten minutes over the course of the day. It’s a good (writing) habit to form.