It’s so easy for us to fall back on the excuse, “I’m too busy to write.” I’d like to challenge you to think idealistically with me for a minute. What would your ideal writing routine look like, if you did have extra time?
Would you write in the morning? The afternoon? Late in the evening?
Would you write in a coffee shop? A library? While under the covers of your warm bed?
Would you listen to music? The ocean? Crickets outside?
Take a few minutes and imagine your ideal writing routine.
Lay it all out in detail. If everything in life lined up to create the perfect circumstances, how would you most like to write?
Here’s mine:
After a full night’s sleep, I wake up rested.
I have coffee, read a bit, meditate, exercise, stretch.
10am-12pm I write in the quiet of my home.
Lunch at a cafe.
1-3pm write at the cafe, just for a change of scenery.
Oh my goodness, that sounds amazing.
Of course, real life kicks in fast. I have three kids (ages 5, 3, and 9 months), so I basically never wake up rested. Mornings are loud and rushed. I spend most of my day coaching and editing. If I do get a chance to write, it’s squeezed into the pre-dawn hours or after the kids are in bed.
But, what if occasionally you could make part of your idea writing routine happen?
Maybe there’s one day a month when you could ask your parents to watch the kids or get a babysitter. Maybe there’s an occasional afternoon when you could discreetly leave work early, drive to the ocean, and write next to the waves. Just allow yourself to brainstorm and come up with creative ways that you might be able to make bits and pieces of your ideal writing routine happen.
Our souls tell us what we need most for creativity
When you think of your ideal writing routine, I believe that’s your soul telling you what it craves, in order to be its most creative. When we want to be creative, our default is to believe that we just need more time, more time. But what if our souls are saying, “You don’t need more time. You just need a bit of time by the ocean or in a quiet coffee shop.” We may actually be more productive if we give our souls that bit of ideal routine that it craves.
And maybe you’ll make way for more and more of your ideal writing time. Maybe if you start going to the mountains occasionally to write, that writing will be so productive and so powerful that you start making money from writing, and then you can afford to go to the mountains more and more, until you finally live in the mountains, writing full time.
You never know. Maybe your ideal writing routine is a sign from the universe of what your soul needs in order to fulfill your purpose in life.
Maybe that’s a little out there.
Maybe it’s not.
Either way, it’s a really fun exercise to brainstorm your ideal writing routine.