How Setting Time Aside to Write is the Best Way to Help Yourself

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of January, I was relatively freer and as a result, I could commit to my resolution. In that short 3 weeks of 2–3 hours of daily writing, I managed to complete more writing (that I’m proud of) than I ever did. I also found that writing became easier and it was easier for me to get into the mood.</p><p id="2f9c">After spending some time to study and streamline my writing process, here are some lessons I learned that might help everyone write better:</p><h2 id="1fea">1. Plan set aside time weekly</h2><p id="204c">Obviously, the fact that I dedicated time every day to writing helped a lot. By setting aside protected time throughout the day, I could put in a hundred percent of my concentration into writing. For most people (including myself) however, having 2–3 hours to write daily seems like a luxury. Hence, I now plan for the following week every Sunday night. If I know that the week will be busy (etc. deadlines to hit, exams or important events), I’ll set aside less time and plan them on days where I will be more likely to have the energy to write. What I have realised is that we don’t have to write daily to ensure a consistent output and see improvements. We just have to ensure that we regularly have protected writing time when we force ourselves to sit and write no matter what. By planning weekly, we can ensure that we have these pockets of time where we do not have to worry about anything else and can focus on writing.</p><h2 id="7d8b">2. Set the mood</h2><p id="7ef8">Everyone will have different writing habits. Some writers like to write in complete silence while others can only write when they are in a crowded place such as a cafe. As such, it is important to find out what works for you and consistently have these conditions around when you write. Not only does this help to get into the best writing condition, this ‘ritual’ prepares and signals to your brain that it is time for writing, helping you concentrate on writing. Personally, I like to drink tea and play my favorite Korean pop songs when I’m writing while I prefer to listen to piano covers when I edit so that I’ll be able to concentrate.</p><h2 id="9a7c">3. Have sources of inspiration at hand</h2><p id="5699">As writers, there will inevitably be days w

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hen we have no new inspiration for writing. As such, it is very useful to keep a catalogue of prompts. These prompts can range from song lyrics to drama lines to news articles. Whenever you see something that might be helpful, you can either write it down (which is what I do) or take a photo or screenshot of it. By keeping all of these prompts in one accessible location, we can refer to them whenever needed, jumpstarting the writing process.</p><p id="7003">The road to improving one’s writing ability is an extremely long one. Yet, I believe that seeing improvements in our writing is one of the most rewarding events. What’s important is to keep the passion to write alive. Not every piece of writing will be good. But with time constantly set aside to write and edit, even the best writers will see improvements and changes in their ability. Here’s to all the improvements we will see in our writing!</p><p id="60cf">You may also be interested in reading:</p><div id="dce2" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/what-it-truly-feels-like-to-be-chosen-and-accepted-107e76a1a920"> <div> <div> <h2>What it Truly Feels Like to be Chosen and Accepted</h2> <div><h3>My experience in the Medium curation jail and finally breaking free from it</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*6sZfR6-QHj_K_adh)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="7b55" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/a-simple-exercise-to-discover-who-you-really-are-32695e103187"> <div> <div> <h2>A Simple Exercise To Discover Who You Really Are</h2> <div><h3>A simple method that I use to understand myself better</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*s_GsG3z258J6PBNB)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

The benefits dedicating time for writing has on improving your writing ability

Improving one’s writing is extremely difficult. Other than long, arduous periods of writing practice, the only other way to improve is to spend long periods reading, be it about tips and tricks by renowned writers or on articles of similar topics. As such, many claim that they are too busy to spare the time to improve themselves (“Oh, writing is like a hobby I do on the side, I don’t think I should have to spend so much time on it”). I used to be like that as well. Other than writing for my blog, I loathed spending swaths of time to write, especially if it meant reducing the amount of time I had to watch dramas or to play my games. (I was younger then and my priorities were finishing the latest game or watching dramas everyone was watching.) As I started to write for Medium and fell out of a consistent posting schedule, the amount of time I spent writing fell even lower (although I did spend more time on writing poems I liked).

The low-productivity writing periods continued until I attempted NaNoWriMo in November. It was then I challenged myself to do lots of writing daily. Yet, the high intensity and high output writing process I ended up with left many articles that were in dire need of editing and did not showcase any improvements. Instead, the quality started to drop as I rushed to meet my deadlines. After November, I went overseas and after I came back, I started to put off writing and editing because “I’ve written too much for the year”.

So… write too little and I don’t improve. Write too much and I don’t improve either… weird. Then came the new year. On my new year’s resolution, I promised to write for 2–3 hours daily. For the first 3 weeks of January, I was relatively freer and as a result, I could commit to my resolution. In that short 3 weeks of 2–3 hours of daily writing, I managed to complete more writing (that I’m proud of) than I ever did. I also found that writing became easier and it was easier for me to get into the mood.

After spending some time to study and streamline my writing process, here are some lessons I learned that might help everyone write better:

1. Plan set aside time weekly

Obviously, the fact that I dedicated time every day to writing helped a lot. By setting aside protected time throughout the day, I could put in a hundred percent of my concentration into writing. For most people (including myself) however, having 2–3 hours to write daily seems like a luxury. Hence, I now plan for the following week every Sunday night. If I know that the week will be busy (etc. deadlines to hit, exams or important events), I’ll set aside less time and plan them on days where I will be more likely to have the energy to write. What I have realised is that we don’t have to write daily to ensure a consistent output and see improvements. We just have to ensure that we regularly have protected writing time when we force ourselves to sit and write no matter what. By planning weekly, we can ensure that we have these pockets of time where we do not have to worry about anything else and can focus on writing.

2. Set the mood

Everyone will have different writing habits. Some writers like to write in complete silence while others can only write when they are in a crowded place such as a cafe. As such, it is important to find out what works for you and consistently have these conditions around when you write. Not only does this help to get into the best writing condition, this ‘ritual’ prepares and signals to your brain that it is time for writing, helping you concentrate on writing. Personally, I like to drink tea and play my favorite Korean pop songs when I’m writing while I prefer to listen to piano covers when I edit so that I’ll be able to concentrate.

3. Have sources of inspiration at hand

As writers, there will inevitably be days when we have no new inspiration for writing. As such, it is very useful to keep a catalogue of prompts. These prompts can range from song lyrics to drama lines to news articles. Whenever you see something that might be helpful, you can either write it down (which is what I do) or take a photo or screenshot of it. By keeping all of these prompts in one accessible location, we can refer to them whenever needed, jumpstarting the writing process.

The road to improving one’s writing ability is an extremely long one. Yet, I believe that seeing improvements in our writing is one of the most rewarding events. What’s important is to keep the passion to write alive. Not every piece of writing will be good. But with time constantly set aside to write and edit, even the best writers will see improvements and changes in their ability. Here’s to all the improvements we will see in our writing!