I completely agree with point 8 – I try to schedule my days in that way whenever possible (which is less often than I would wish for). Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I have recently started to try out writing the first draft of a text by hand rather than typing it into the computer. I then use the process of typewriting (which comes days later, sometimes) for editing and redacting the text. This has so far worked very well, though I only recently began to write with this approach.
Thank you for your comment, Dominik. I do this a lot too, especially for poetry, memoir, the more creative stuff. And I also edit as I type it up. What's interesting to me is that sometimes I just need to do a *bit* of handwriting to get the juices flowing, and then can continue in that mood at the computer for a few days. But handwriting tends to lead to a calmer state of mind -- thank you for this reminder.
Yes, I realized a while ago that writing my early drafts by hand works much better than typing them (unless, of course, it's writing like this). The transfer from handwritten to typewritten text offers me a great opportunity for reading closely, fiddling, seeing opportunities for development.
This really resonates with me. My calm hours are a different window of time (more like 2-5 in the afternoon), but the notion that I have to protect my energy to come to the task with the right head space has become a key to making good use of that time.
I like to clear out the bureaucratic in the morning so I can focus later. I also have a period from 1-2 where I don't sit at the desk, but I start thinking more actively about whatever I'm working on so when it's time to hit the keyboard, I feel like I'm already warm to the task.
I'm easily thrown off too. If my sleep is poor, or if I've had more than one drink the night before I may find myself without the energy to do good work. I'll probably still try to do something to stay involved in what I'm working on, but it often feels off. Figuring this stuff out over the years has become an important part of my writing practice.
Yes, this kind of work is so much sensitive to a bad night of sleep or an upset stomach or whatever. Though it's not impossible to work with bad physical conditions, it's harder to work steadily.
I'm thinking of the ongoing conversation we've had about AI, and this comment, and it strikes me it's another way that outsourcing the drafting robs us, at least when it comes to difficult writing that takes art and endurance and deep concentration. It robs us of an opportunity for self-knowledge and self-observation.
My experience is very similar to yours, so I ver much appreciate that you have written this post!
This semester I'm teaching a class called Theories of Writing and Creativity for 3rd and 4th year undergraduate students, and we spend a week reading about time, energy, and knowledge management before the students spend two weeks experimenting with one new-to-them system. This unit in the course always leads to interesting conversations about both tools and theory, or philosophy. I think we all benefit from exposure to examples of the things that work for other people because they offer a library of options to choose from as we try to build systems for ourselves.
This is a wonderful and wonderfully written way to think about my writing. The single greatest difficulty for me is to actually make use of the windows that I have. I have often told myself that I don't have enough space to write, but I now know that isn't true. I haven't thought of it before as "energy." I don't even think of it as time. It's more like there's a threshold that I have to cross. Writing is a room that I enter. My task is to find a way to enter the room, and that involves emotionally removing *anything* else from the threshold. Not TV, not another book, not hunger or thirst, not fatigue, not a nap, not even quiet. Because once I enter the room, none of those things matter. The key to the door that opens the room is not an action but a refusal. Until I enter the room, I don't allow myself to do anything else. I place no demands on how long I'm in the room, or on the quality of what I produce. The only rule is that I don't let myself engage in any other acts until I enter the room and create something there: a paragraph, a scene, a poem, even an outline. Invariably, once I get myself into that room, things begin to happen.
Your piece now has me trying to attend to what factors get me to open the door. What gives me the ability to set everything aside sometimes but not others? I know that part of it is fear; I think part of it *is* energy. Now I need to pay more attention to what those different kinds of energy are.
I have what seems like an unworkable working pattern that nevertheless consistently works for me when I'm drafting, which is to write at least 100 words, then get up and do 10 small tasks. VERY small tasks. Folding one item of laundry is "a task." Then sit down and write 100 more words. Most of the time, in doing a small household task, my brain solves the next chunk and I sit down and am just typing. And usually, somewhere in that up/down/up/down process, I hit some sort of flow and find a lot more than 100 words. One of the catches, however, is the house has to be empty. In the "get up" portion of this process, there can be no one around to want attention, distract me, or need a thing. An upside is my laundry is always folded.
In thinking about how your energy matches a moment, sometimes you just have to acknowledge that what you’re trying to do isn’t right for that moment. As it relates to writing, are you really going to force the square peg through the round hole and make everyone else in your home angry all day, or will you honor that the moment calls for something else (ie, not writing).
Such an interesting piece/discussion about recognizing energy shifts during the day, after doing certain activities, and where to get the most flow for different types of work.
I agree with a lot of this, and at the same time have seen some negative returns from being too precious about process. Sometimes slogging through a tired or off hour gets me to a better place or generates material that is useful for a later flow state. Having to show up at work and, well, work through a whole matter of distractions, sub par moods, annoyances, etc, has shown me that showing up and sticking with it (more or less) does have a consistent yield. Working in film has shown me the various textures of the forced, creative working life - yes there is a dreamy, brainy research/imagination stage, and also there are logistical things to get done and there's a real value in completion over perfection, in creative problem solving over endless ideation, and in doing whatever you need to do to show up for the work (sometimes at ungodly hours of the morning) ready to be the best version of yourself.
In writing, we don't have call times or crews to keep us motivated and focused, but we do have deadlines. I've found that when I'm focused on a deadline, process preciousness falls away, expectations are more managed (less the great [country name] novel & more the best novel I can submit by x date). I've also found that narrowing my focus a bit, from all available parts of the work & all available (positive) distractions, helps - I designed some dice with different prompts for this that I keep at my desk.
Thank you for this, and I agree. Though the way I think of it is that deadlines just draw forth a different kind of energy from me. But I take your larger point about how the point is just showing up sometimes. Where I come from is that I've had periods in my life where I show up to the page every day, write a lot of crap, and the result is not that I can revise the crap into something workable, but that I get depressed and hopeless. I find this particularly happens in periods when I'm trying to find the voice for a certain project.
I'm very curious about those dice -- would you be willing to share the prompts? A few years ago at a game store I bought a bunch of dice of various types, imagining that I would make up writing prompts for them, but never got around to it. They are in one of my desk drawers, still.
i really like that picasso quote about everyone being a good artist that has to paint 1000 bad paintings first. i try not to be so critical in the moment now and trust in the value of showing up (easier said than done, i know). here’s a photo of the dice - one is for procrastination & the other for writing, i had them made on etsy.
Oh, thinking about this article a little more I just came up with the idea to create a new account on my laptop that is completely barren: no applications except for my text editor. So that I don’t get tempted to open email or WhatsApp or substack when logging in first thing in the morning.
After reading this post last night I got behind my laptop this morning and I worked on writing an essay for work for 2 hours before checking my email or other messages. It was so peaceful, so calm - like a breath of fresh air. And somehow I also feel much less agitated by emails and messages now that I’ve gotten a big chuck of deep work out of the way before noon! I so hope I can stick with this for at least a few days a week 🙏
I do a lot of voice memos when driving or walking, getting ideas out of my head and starting the generative process. During these same times, sometimes I do a relisten to those recordings to keep ideas close to me, which helps during those times I’m rushing between teaching classes or I’m too exhausted at the end of the day to write.
This is packed with so much value! Thank you Irina. I’m still figuring out how to be intentional with my energy and I can’t have the same routine every day.
For me it means mostly lots of time for myself and if I can sit down to write after a walk in the morning, that’s when I’m usually the least prone to distraction and daydream.
I used to play really loud gangsta rap music (with headphones) to amp myself up if I need higher energy, now it’s different styles of high energy music. Dancing or running to it is a plus for getting my whole body in that zone.
I love this, thank you for sharing!! I'm a mental health therapist in private practice and have been struggling with building my schedule in a way that feels efficient/effective/flowing for me. Thinking about my energy flow is so helpful. I appreciated your point about pauses and recharging. If I have a client that cancels I can have an unexpected pause in my day that can throw me off, and to think about what I can do during that pause to keep momentum is really helpful (spoiler-- it is not getting on social media). Also, I have to write clinical notes to get paid by insurance and abhor doing it, but if I can get my energy up beforehand, I can power through. Generally, this means doing it early in the morning, when the parts of me that think health insurance is the biggest scam of our lifetime are still asleep. Thank you for this post and the clarity it's giving me!!
I'm delighted to hear of these applications... for me the single best thing in helping me take on hated paperwork is weightlifting beforehand. Maybe it makes me feel stronger?
Ooh. What an excellent nudge to really dig into what my creative windows are. Always love hearing about what works for other people. In fact I will endlessly read about people's creative routines in place of doing The Creative Thing myself...
I definitely try to do 8 (write early, then do emails/admin after) but if I can't get into it, this might flip. I love 15, 16, 17 and remind myself of these when I feel like I should be working versus seeing art, sharing other things online or spending time with people who inspire me. And yes, I too wish I could write in 20-minute intervals. Sometimes I can work from home but often, leaving the home office helps.
I completely agree with point 8 – I try to schedule my days in that way whenever possible (which is less often than I would wish for). Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I have recently started to try out writing the first draft of a text by hand rather than typing it into the computer. I then use the process of typewriting (which comes days later, sometimes) for editing and redacting the text. This has so far worked very well, though I only recently began to write with this approach.
Thank you for your comment, Dominik. I do this a lot too, especially for poetry, memoir, the more creative stuff. And I also edit as I type it up. What's interesting to me is that sometimes I just need to do a *bit* of handwriting to get the juices flowing, and then can continue in that mood at the computer for a few days. But handwriting tends to lead to a calmer state of mind -- thank you for this reminder.
Yes, I realized a while ago that writing my early drafts by hand works much better than typing them (unless, of course, it's writing like this). The transfer from handwritten to typewritten text offers me a great opportunity for reading closely, fiddling, seeing opportunities for development.
This really resonates with me. My calm hours are a different window of time (more like 2-5 in the afternoon), but the notion that I have to protect my energy to come to the task with the right head space has become a key to making good use of that time.
I like to clear out the bureaucratic in the morning so I can focus later. I also have a period from 1-2 where I don't sit at the desk, but I start thinking more actively about whatever I'm working on so when it's time to hit the keyboard, I feel like I'm already warm to the task.
I'm easily thrown off too. If my sleep is poor, or if I've had more than one drink the night before I may find myself without the energy to do good work. I'll probably still try to do something to stay involved in what I'm working on, but it often feels off. Figuring this stuff out over the years has become an important part of my writing practice.
Yes, this kind of work is so much sensitive to a bad night of sleep or an upset stomach or whatever. Though it's not impossible to work with bad physical conditions, it's harder to work steadily.
I'm thinking of the ongoing conversation we've had about AI, and this comment, and it strikes me it's another way that outsourcing the drafting robs us, at least when it comes to difficult writing that takes art and endurance and deep concentration. It robs us of an opportunity for self-knowledge and self-observation.
My experience is very similar to yours, so I ver much appreciate that you have written this post!
This semester I'm teaching a class called Theories of Writing and Creativity for 3rd and 4th year undergraduate students, and we spend a week reading about time, energy, and knowledge management before the students spend two weeks experimenting with one new-to-them system. This unit in the course always leads to interesting conversations about both tools and theory, or philosophy. I think we all benefit from exposure to examples of the things that work for other people because they offer a library of options to choose from as we try to build systems for ourselves.
Kate, that course sounds amazing! Any chance you might let me peek at the reading list?
This is a wonderful and wonderfully written way to think about my writing. The single greatest difficulty for me is to actually make use of the windows that I have. I have often told myself that I don't have enough space to write, but I now know that isn't true. I haven't thought of it before as "energy." I don't even think of it as time. It's more like there's a threshold that I have to cross. Writing is a room that I enter. My task is to find a way to enter the room, and that involves emotionally removing *anything* else from the threshold. Not TV, not another book, not hunger or thirst, not fatigue, not a nap, not even quiet. Because once I enter the room, none of those things matter. The key to the door that opens the room is not an action but a refusal. Until I enter the room, I don't allow myself to do anything else. I place no demands on how long I'm in the room, or on the quality of what I produce. The only rule is that I don't let myself engage in any other acts until I enter the room and create something there: a paragraph, a scene, a poem, even an outline. Invariably, once I get myself into that room, things begin to happen.
Your piece now has me trying to attend to what factors get me to open the door. What gives me the ability to set everything aside sometimes but not others? I know that part of it is fear; I think part of it *is* energy. Now I need to pay more attention to what those different kinds of energy are.
I have what seems like an unworkable working pattern that nevertheless consistently works for me when I'm drafting, which is to write at least 100 words, then get up and do 10 small tasks. VERY small tasks. Folding one item of laundry is "a task." Then sit down and write 100 more words. Most of the time, in doing a small household task, my brain solves the next chunk and I sit down and am just typing. And usually, somewhere in that up/down/up/down process, I hit some sort of flow and find a lot more than 100 words. One of the catches, however, is the house has to be empty. In the "get up" portion of this process, there can be no one around to want attention, distract me, or need a thing. An upside is my laundry is always folded.
Do you go to another room for the tasks, or do you just have a basket of laundry next to your desk? Inquiring minds need to know
Definitely get up and move around!
In thinking about how your energy matches a moment, sometimes you just have to acknowledge that what you’re trying to do isn’t right for that moment. As it relates to writing, are you really going to force the square peg through the round hole and make everyone else in your home angry all day, or will you honor that the moment calls for something else (ie, not writing).
This is true, but hard to take, which leads to a lot of angry staring at a computer screen I find.
Such an interesting piece/discussion about recognizing energy shifts during the day, after doing certain activities, and where to get the most flow for different types of work.
I agree with a lot of this, and at the same time have seen some negative returns from being too precious about process. Sometimes slogging through a tired or off hour gets me to a better place or generates material that is useful for a later flow state. Having to show up at work and, well, work through a whole matter of distractions, sub par moods, annoyances, etc, has shown me that showing up and sticking with it (more or less) does have a consistent yield. Working in film has shown me the various textures of the forced, creative working life - yes there is a dreamy, brainy research/imagination stage, and also there are logistical things to get done and there's a real value in completion over perfection, in creative problem solving over endless ideation, and in doing whatever you need to do to show up for the work (sometimes at ungodly hours of the morning) ready to be the best version of yourself.
In writing, we don't have call times or crews to keep us motivated and focused, but we do have deadlines. I've found that when I'm focused on a deadline, process preciousness falls away, expectations are more managed (less the great [country name] novel & more the best novel I can submit by x date). I've also found that narrowing my focus a bit, from all available parts of the work & all available (positive) distractions, helps - I designed some dice with different prompts for this that I keep at my desk.
Congrats on the TLS pub!
Thank you for this, and I agree. Though the way I think of it is that deadlines just draw forth a different kind of energy from me. But I take your larger point about how the point is just showing up sometimes. Where I come from is that I've had periods in my life where I show up to the page every day, write a lot of crap, and the result is not that I can revise the crap into something workable, but that I get depressed and hopeless. I find this particularly happens in periods when I'm trying to find the voice for a certain project.
I'm very curious about those dice -- would you be willing to share the prompts? A few years ago at a game store I bought a bunch of dice of various types, imagining that I would make up writing prompts for them, but never got around to it. They are in one of my desk drawers, still.
i really like that picasso quote about everyone being a good artist that has to paint 1000 bad paintings first. i try not to be so critical in the moment now and trust in the value of showing up (easier said than done, i know). here’s a photo of the dice - one is for procrastination & the other for writing, i had them made on etsy.
https://imgur.com/a/LA287JX
Oh, thinking about this article a little more I just came up with the idea to create a new account on my laptop that is completely barren: no applications except for my text editor. So that I don’t get tempted to open email or WhatsApp or substack when logging in first thing in the morning.
Oooh that is a very good idea. I wonder if I could play with this too.
After reading this post last night I got behind my laptop this morning and I worked on writing an essay for work for 2 hours before checking my email or other messages. It was so peaceful, so calm - like a breath of fresh air. And somehow I also feel much less agitated by emails and messages now that I’ve gotten a big chuck of deep work out of the way before noon! I so hope I can stick with this for at least a few days a week 🙏
Oh this is wonderful! Thank you so much for letting me know.
I do a lot of voice memos when driving or walking, getting ideas out of my head and starting the generative process. During these same times, sometimes I do a relisten to those recordings to keep ideas close to me, which helps during those times I’m rushing between teaching classes or I’m too exhausted at the end of the day to write.
This is packed with so much value! Thank you Irina. I’m still figuring out how to be intentional with my energy and I can’t have the same routine every day.
For me it means mostly lots of time for myself and if I can sit down to write after a walk in the morning, that’s when I’m usually the least prone to distraction and daydream.
I used to play really loud gangsta rap music (with headphones) to amp myself up if I need higher energy, now it’s different styles of high energy music. Dancing or running to it is a plus for getting my whole body in that zone.
I have to try the gangsta rap!
I love this, thank you for sharing!! I'm a mental health therapist in private practice and have been struggling with building my schedule in a way that feels efficient/effective/flowing for me. Thinking about my energy flow is so helpful. I appreciated your point about pauses and recharging. If I have a client that cancels I can have an unexpected pause in my day that can throw me off, and to think about what I can do during that pause to keep momentum is really helpful (spoiler-- it is not getting on social media). Also, I have to write clinical notes to get paid by insurance and abhor doing it, but if I can get my energy up beforehand, I can power through. Generally, this means doing it early in the morning, when the parts of me that think health insurance is the biggest scam of our lifetime are still asleep. Thank you for this post and the clarity it's giving me!!
I'm delighted to hear of these applications... for me the single best thing in helping me take on hated paperwork is weightlifting beforehand. Maybe it makes me feel stronger?
Ooh. What an excellent nudge to really dig into what my creative windows are. Always love hearing about what works for other people. In fact I will endlessly read about people's creative routines in place of doing The Creative Thing myself...
Ha! Well then your task is of course to figure out the *shift*....
I definitely try to do 8 (write early, then do emails/admin after) but if I can't get into it, this might flip. I love 15, 16, 17 and remind myself of these when I feel like I should be working versus seeing art, sharing other things online or spending time with people who inspire me. And yes, I too wish I could write in 20-minute intervals. Sometimes I can work from home but often, leaving the home office helps.
Very useful & precious advices! Thank you for sharing them 🙏