Creativity and Productivity
Here’s How I Save 1465 Hours Yearly to Write Several Books While Working Full Time.
Creative ways to save scarce time for writing and self-editing to be a prolific writer
How to Save Time for Writing When Too Busy
What if I tell you I saved at least four hours by cutting unnecessary distractors in my personal and professional life? And I used that time to write four books and hundreds of articles in a year. In that case, I believe you will read this article without skipping it.
If someone offered this productivity value to me, I would read it at least twice as time is the most crucial and scarce asset in my life.
This article summarizes a chapter from one of my books titled “Powerful Life-Changing Hacks That Truly Transformed My Life”. This article reflects a simple yet very powerful life hack for me. I believe the ideas in this piece can give writers valuable insights as they were game-changers for me.
Writing has been a great passion for me, starting in my childhood. Unfortunately, as a full-time professional with a big mortgage and family commitment, I had limited time to pursue this passion. This constraint adversely affected my mental health.
Therefore, I needed a quick and sustainable solution to overcome my limitation. To achieve my writing goal, I had to trade off some activities. The obvious answer was to cut distractions.
After meticulously reviewing every minute spent on activities, I identified some noticeable patterns wasting my valuable time. This chapter introduces the time-wasters that prevented me from pursuing my passion and how I addressed them.
If you struggle with finding time to write, find your voice, and become a prolific writer, these points can give you valuable insights. Most of these items are commonly known and experienced by many.
1 — Taming the Internet and Social Media Use
My first finding was that if the Internet is not used consciously and disciplined, it can be detrimental to the writer’s productive time. Browsing the Internet with no specific goal can waste considerable time. When we surf from one link to another, valuable hours are gone making us feel empty afterward.
Even though I loved the Internet for many reasons, I noticed that it was a trap due to the wiring of our brains. Our brains tend to have instant gratification rewarded with small spikes of dopamine elevating us temporarily.
However, unfortunately, this small surge of dopamine does not last long. Once we realize losing a considerable amount of time with no tangible achievement, guilt starts emerging and replaces dopamine with depressing neurochemicals.
In addition to surfing the Internet for research, another dopamine-boosting effect was social media. Some social media tools have an entertainment effect. As an entertainment medium, YouTube was a big time-consuming distraction for me. There is, of course, value and place for YouTube. Nevertheless, it can be a dreadful time-waster for writers if they don’t monitor their time.
Another time-waster for me was Twitter. There is a delightful attraction to reading tweets in less than 140 characters which does not require much time and effort. However, these short tweets also contain links to videos and articles that attract our attention.
The visual nature of Facebook kept my attention in the earlier days. Finding childhood friends and a virtual reunion with them was captivating. Nevertheless, each interaction was taxing my time. The same thing happened to LinkedIn. In short, several social media platforms consumed significant time that I had to trade off for my writing.
I started observing my online behavior. I needed to change my habits. I monitored the use of social media closely. If I needed to search for something, I paid attention to a specific point in my schedule.
For example, when I needed to use Twitter, YouTube, or Linkedin, I allocated a particular time. I set my alarm for ten minutes in my downtime when my energy level was low. This disciplined approach saved time and rejuvenated me by boosting my dopamine consciously. I also do occasional social media fast.
I designed a habit called “first create than consume”. This means that without creating a piece of content, I would not attempt to use social media and consume content such as reading an article or watching a video.
2 — Eliminating Unnecessary Meetings
I noticed that a big chunk of my time was wasted in many social and work-related meetings. Even though I practiced good meeting management habits at work, such as focusing on agenda items, some sessions were unnecessary. They did not contribute to my work goals. Sometimes meetings ended with no actions or outcomes.
The same situation happened in social meetings. Numerous social meetings consumed significant time. Some social gatherings even cause some emotional disturbances. When our brain is overwhelmed in productive time dealing with too many emotions, we feel exhausted. Then, we need recovery time from social stress.
I learned to go to my social meetings well-prepared. For example, when meeting a friend at nine o’clock, I clearly and precisely pointed out that I had a ten-clock meeting or a specific commitment. So, I clearly pointed out that I needed to finish by ten to ten. This simple practice has been productive, valuing both my time and my friends’ time.
3 — Dealing with Work Rituals
Coffee has been a ritual in corporate workplaces of numerous countries I worked. My colleagues and friends loved coffee. I used to be a coffee drinker too. The worst situation was about underestimating times. For example, when a colleague and customer invited me for a ten-minute coffee, it usually ended up in an hour.
I had to monitor my coffee breaks and create new habits. One practical point I discovered was to order the coffee on the phone before going to the coffee place. This simple hack saved a little bit of time.
As I did in the meeting situation, I made upfront statements. For example, I told my colleagues or customers that I had a meeting in ten minutes or needed to write a report to be submitted in an hour, or had to respond to an urgent email.
Sometimes, they sounded like excuses, but when I pointed them upfront, most of the time, we stuck to the ten-minute break rather than an hour. I saved significant time by managing my coffee times with this awareness and practice.
4. Rearranging the Feeding and Shopping Times
Another chunk of my time was going into meal preparation, shopping for food, planning mealtimes, eating, and cleaning. In my younger years, I used to eat three meals and three snacks to stay energetic. It was ironic as those frequent meals made me lethargic.
When I learned the side effects of frequent meals, I gradually cut off snacks. This saved me time and made me feel better. Then, I learned about the benefits of intermittent fasting.
During this process, I understood that breakfast was not the most important meal for me. In fact, it was not even necessary. Cutting breakfast saved me time and gave me more energy.
With this enthusiasm, I decided to cut lunch. As a result, my intermittent fasting window increased to 16 hours with an eight-hour feeding window after work hours. This regime turned out to be a blessing to me. It not only saved time but also made my body fat adopted.
Even better, when I reached a fat-adopted state, my brain chemistry changed. One meal day put me into ketosis shortly. My mood swings and brain fog disappeared, so I became more creative and productive.
I also created a particular nutrient-rich eating regime. This unique and customized diet dramatically shortened my shopping time. I used to spend around two hours on my shopping.
In this regime, I only spent approximately 15 to 20 minutes altogether. By eating one meal a day and following a customized diet, I saved at least three hours a day from eating and two hours a week from shopping.
5 — Cutting Useless News Papers and Television
I falsely believed that we must read and watch the news daily to become intellectual and good citizens in my younger years. Believing this myth was one of my biggest regrets for my wasted time and unnecessary stress.
When I learned reading newspapers and watching television were not essential, like breakfast, I had an awakening moment. Understanding the numbing effects of TV on our brains was a good start.
Interestingly, I have not read newspapers and have not watched TV over the last three decades. However, I consumed essential news by subscribing to vital news sources. This practice not only saved me time but also made me happier and more productive.
Some family members, colleagues, and friends tell me about their Netflix experiences ending up with four to six hours of watching exciting episodes. I don’t judge their choice, but I cannot stomach wasting several hours that seem to be torturing my psyche.
I consider the TV, particularly watching the news, as torturing because hearing about bad news like accidents, casualties, and fatalities in other cities or countries used to depress me.
6 — Dealing with the Addictive Nature of Smartphones and Email
I never got addicted to home phones or earlier mobile phones, but when smartphones started offering many apps, I noticed an instant dependence on mobile phones. It took me a few months to understand what was going on.
Text messages and constant alerts created psychological vulnerability for me. I got a slight dopamine boost with constant warnings with bell sounds when each message arrived. As my brain loved dopamine, these small triggers created dependence.
In the earlier days of smartphones, I understood that they were as distractive and addictive as the Internet and social media. Therefore, I took action to fix my phone use and developed helpful habits.
The first action was to stop all notifications from the apps. This made a huge difference. The second action was to put my smartphone in silent or flight mode unless I waited for an urgent or essential message. Like other good habits, this also saved me time, improved my attention span, and gave me more creative and productive times for my writing.
I have always loved email as a valuable business tool. However, it became an issue on the Internet, social media, and smartphone after a while. If email is not appropriately managed, it can waste valuable time. And it was wasting my time as I subscribed to several unnecessary email lists.
I used to check my email too frequently. One of my wise mentors told me that nothing urgent would go via email one day. If there were an emergency, they would call me or text me. He said that anything in an email could wait at least a few hours.
This simple point immediately resonated with me. I planned to check my email every three hours rather than every ten minutes. Like previous habits, this habit also saved me significant time and improved my mental health, creativity, and productivity.
7 — Re-negotiating Commute Times
I used to commute to work every day and visit multiple client sites frequently. Getting to my workplace took an hour of driving. Driving in the morning traffic was exceptionally stressful. While I was driving, I couldn’t read or write. However, my temporary solution was to listen to audiobooks and podcasts. This was useful when driving.
Later I decided to use the train for my daily work commute. This saved me two hours of writing on my laptop on the train. This little switch from driving to using the train helped me write hundreds of pages in a year. I also saved time on planes on international flights by refusing entertainment and focusing on reading and writing.
However, a more sustainable solution in this area was to re-negotiate my travel and commute time with my employers and clients. As many jobs can be done remotely, I offered to work from home twice a week unless an urgent case required a face-to-face meeting.
When I told my boss I would work an extra hour, she loved the idea. I gave her one hour and saved another hour for my writing. Besides, this privilege significantly reduced my stress level and improved my mental health and overall well-being.
8 — Dealing with Needy People
Family is, of course, important in our lives. Our children, partners, parents, and siblings are valuable for our well-being. However, an undisciplined approach to family life can be time-consuming and stressful.
My solution to family issues was scheduling time to discuss matters unless something was urgent and vital exceptionally. Closing my study room and putting up a don’t disturb sign not only protected my time but also encouraged the other family members to do the same. It was a win-win situation in the end.
Long ago, some relatives and neighbors rang my doorbell and wanted to chat about their daily problems with no notice. Then, they usually started asking whether I had two minutes.
Most of the time, these two minutes ended up in two hours talking at the doorway or an unplanned coffee inside. I loved my neighbors and relatives dearly, but I wanted them to have social chats at mutually convenient times.
I took some actions to schedule my time with my family members, relatives, and neighbors for quality time. Being honest and communicating with compassion was my chosen approach. Despite minor annoyances initially, I managed to schedule my time with relatives and neighbors.
People around us are important, but no one is more important than ourselves in a specific context. This is not selfishness — far from it. My point is that unless we look after our health, fitness, and well-being, we cannot look after others efficiently.
Being clear about our priorities and focusing on quality time rather than spending valuable time with meaningless chats can be stressful, conflicting, tedious, unhealthy, and time-consuming. Learning to manage the expectations of my family members, relatives, and neighbors saved me significant time.
Conclusions and Takeaways
When I discussed these points with one of my mentors, he responded that “saying yes to these time-wasting traps means no to writing.” I admired this insightful point which kept me on track in setting priorities in my personal and professional life.
From my experience, being aware of these distractions, regularly monitoring them, taking practical actions, and developing valuable habits helped me gain substantial time to allocate to my writing practice.
I also learned that distractions were the most dangerous barrier to my writing. Therefore, removing all known distractions and not letting technology dictate my life significantly contributed to my writing practice.
The traps and distractions I mentioned not only steal our valuable time but also consume our mental energy, reduce motivation, and cause procrastination. Most of these traps can constitute writer’s block due to mental fatigue. The good news is that we prevent them by monitoring, taking necessary measures, and developing helpful prioritization habits.
As a best practice, removing distractions and blocking time, I aim to write a bad draft of at least 1,000 words in each sitting. This blocked time must be habitual.
Nowadays, I close my study door, keep my essentials such as water, tissues, paper, pen, and reference materials on the desk, and focus on writing. Focus and attention are crucial for the blocked time.
As mentioned in my previous articles, I don’t manage my time. Instead, I manage my priorities. Time management is a misnomer. Contrary to common beliefs, time is an unmanageable entity.
An attempt to manage time — instead of priorities — can be demotivating and unproductive. If my focus is writing for a scheduled time, other activities are temporarily dimmed, remaining in the background for a priority at another time.
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Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
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As part of my creative non-fiction writing goals, I’d like to share a few stories that might warm our hearts with a bit of humor into weighty topics.
Sample Humorous Stories
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Based on my writing experience and observations, I documented findings and strategies that might help you amplify your voice, engage your audience, and achieve your desired outcomes in your writing journey.
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