My Hack for Writing Stories When I Have Zero Time

It takes less than one minute.

FODDER: 1. Something fed to domestic animals. 2. Inferior or readily available material used to supply a heavy demand. (merriam-webster.com)

It happens at least three times a week:

I sit down to write and WHAM!

Life happens. And it needs me, urgently.

But as I let out a frustrated sigh before getting up to attend to my toddler or or other urgent matter, I’ve learned to stop and tell myself this first:

At least get some fodder down.

I got this tip from Lipika Sahu’s story “5 Daily Micro Habits That Save Me Hours in Writing.”

As she puts it, “As marinating meat with papaya tenderizes it, an overnight half-baked idea streamlines the (writing) mornings.”

While Sahu “chews on the cud” of her ideas overnight, I’ve found that anytime I get an idea, I can jot it down and marinate on it for hours.

She calls her half-baked ideas cud or pulp; I call it fodder — just that raw stuff you sprinkle on the ground of your mind to start chewing on.

It doesn’t have to be pretty or even fully thought-out — it just has to be there, marinating in the juices of your writing mind.

If you can get that one sentence — one thought — down on paper or Google Docs or your Notes app, there’s your fodder for you to be marinating on all day.

So even as I’m grocery shopping or changing diapers, I’m working on a story in the back of my head.

In fact, “putting down fodder” has been so helpful for me that I’ve started setting aside just five minutes each day for “fodder time” — I plop down on my couch, phone in hand, and type whatever ideas come to mind.

It’s an easy exercise — fodder is just that raw stuff, remember?

And since “putting down fodder” is a low-pressure, low-expectation, low-time commitment practice, I almost always show up, and the results are astounding.

Because when I get a slice of free time later, those marinated thoughts come pouring onto the page.

So don’t let lack of time keep you from writing. When you get that idea, it’s valuable fodder — jot it down before you leave for work or step into that meeting, then marinate on it all day!