"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island." - Walt Disney

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

A Writer's Dream Schedule

Writers often discuss their daily schedule. I must confess I am a bit envious since I don’t have one. Maybe I would not enjoy writing as much if I had more time to commit to it. Although, maybe I would take it more seriously and thus find even greater enjoyment in the craft. Hmm… a daily routine. What might that look like?
Well, I would want to leave time for my family. This is easy now as I am a stay at home mom of two girls not yet old enough for school. However, this will change one day. I would also need to leave an amount of time for social networking such as email, facebook, twitter, blogs etc. every day. Obviously, I want time for writing and if I’m smart and any good, I’ll need time for marketing.
That schedule might look something like this:

6:00 – 6:30   Prayer and Exercise
6:30 – 7:30   Get the girls ready and to school
7:30 – 8:30   Check email, blog, facebook, twitter
8:30 – 11:30  Writing, Revisions, Critiques
11:30 – 12:30 Lunch with friends or family
12:30 – 1:00  Check email, blog, facebook, twitter
1:00 – 3:00   Writing, Revisions, Critiques
3:00 – 8:00   Pick up girls from school, take them to ballet, baseball etc., supervise homework, prepare dinner, play
8:00 – 8:30   Get girls ready for bed
8:30 – 9:00   Check email, blog, facebook, twitter
9:00 – 10:00  Read

Of course this is only a loose idea of what my schedule could be like. Notice I have not factored in any time for marketing (or chores ;-). I suppose that would come from some of the writing or checking social media time.
What is your workday or dream workday like?

11 comments:

Karen Jones Gowen said...

I keep trying to set up a scheduled routine like this. But then I end up just making a to do list, and it works for me.

Rob-bear said...

I don't have a plan, so I am considering yours.
Actually, I couldn't do yours. I'm not usually up earlier than 8:00 am. And I don't have kids to care for, unless the grandchildren are here.
Besides, I'm retied.
Other than that, yours looks very interesting.

Arlee Bird said...

Gosh, I've been wanting to make a schedule like this. I guess I do have a sort of an informal daily schedule, but I know I waste a lot of time and should organize it better. Your schedule looks pretty nicely planned. Good luck with it.


Lee
Tossing It Out

mooderino said...

I try to work to a schedule, but I find time I puit aside for online stuff slowly expands to take over a whole afternoon, or time I set aside for editing. Hard to be disciplined when the whole world is behind that screen.

mood

Paul Anthony Shortt said...

Anything with lots of writing is a good one for me. :-)

http://www.samposey.com/ said...

Oh I think a dream workday would have me writing away most of it with a maid to do the cooking, cleaning, and shopping. Maybe even a private tutor for the kid. I would love to get to the point where I can walk into a room and put a sign on the door, "Writer at Work."

Mary Aalgaard said...

Chores, schmores! I'm ignoring most of mine today. A rough idea of an ideal schedule is good. I tend to do most of the things on my mental list, if I have one. Otherwise, the day can twiddle away.

Sylvia Ney said...

Shellie - when your maid is done at your house send her on over to mine! ;-)

shelly said...

I work five days a week. I make sure on those days I schedule two hours of writing time in, 30 minutes to check e-mails and Facebook, read 10 blogs and comment. Somewhere in there I walk the dogs,make dinner and clean the kitchen, and read a novel.

On my off days I clean downstairs on one of them and clean the upstairs on the next, I schedule in two hours of writing in the mornings and two hours after dinner. An hour of e-mail and Facbook checks morning, noon, and evening along with blog readings or posting a blog.

Lorelei Bell said...

I'm like Shelly, and work 5 days a week. I actually clean after dinner, some times. You know? Just do a little here and there--so I don't have to do all of it at once.
Weekeneds are for catching up on things I need to do, and then write in a whole block of time--3-4 hours, if I can. My husband does laundry, and sometimes cooks, and he is very supportive.

If I were to attempt to even make a schedule--I'd either loose it, or I wouldn't even follow it. So, I'm a fly by my pants when it comes to life. As I do with my books. But I've been doing it a while, so I'm doing something right, I guess.

Tonja said...

My toddler goes to a little morning school three mornings a week. I write for those three hours. If there's any time left, I sneak in some facebook time and read and comment on other people's blogs. With only 9 hours that are guaranteed to be mine, I write. The rest of my day is random chaos.