Ultra Busy Writers Have These Five Techniques Down Pat

Scrappy ways to work up to that much-coveted flow state

Writing is one of the smartest side hustles anyone can invest in.

Not just as a moneymaker but also as an art form. The creativity that goes into writing fiction or poetry translates into better critical thinking and emotional intelligence in other avenues. Plus, the mere act of writing can make you smarter — woohoo for words!

I have two side hustles related to writing — my Medium writing and my literary short fiction. They’re very different types of writing, obviously, and they’re in addition to my day job as a B2B freelance writer, which means I need to be savvy about when and how I engage with those side hustles. Part of the answer has designated “flow” time for each — but an equally vital part involves being scrappy with the time I do have, even if it’s just five minutes.

These are the background heroes in a writer’s life— the sneaky supplements to the lengthy flow states. Busy writers know they won’t always get flow states, but that doesn’t stop them from getting their words in whenever the muse calls. If you’re looking to write more amidst your busy schedule, these are worth trying out.

1. Using the phone as a scratchpad

We almost always have our phones with us.

Whether or not that’s a good thing is a debate for another day.

The point is that when ideas strike — when those first fledgling notes are waiting to be captured — smart writers have the self-control to take out the phone, write down the ideas and then put the phone back, without getting sucked into social media.

The phone isn’t the enemy. Our attitude is. If we know we’re busy, and if we know we have to make the most of the time we have to write as much and as well as we can, the phone can be the bridge between the idea and the exploration of it.

2. Getting in short writing sprints throughout the day

I wrote about the five-minute writing session a long time ago, and it’s still one of my favourite busy-girl writing tips.

Mastering the five-minute session comes with practice. You need to be able to pack as much as you can into short sprints, be it outlines for articles or entire paragraphs or notes about a short story character. The trick? You need to come in with a clear mindset of: “I’m here only for a bit, so I need to make the most of it.”

Not much of a secret here — just keep trying it, whenever you have a few extra minutes.

3. Writing regardless of ambience

We aren’t always going to have cosy coffee shops at hand.

Smart writers know this. And they’ve mastered the art of getting their words in wherever they are, no matter how noisy or uncomfortable. At the boarding gate. On the bus back home. In a Chipotle with a screaming kid at the next table. At work, between meetings. During a bathroom break at a family event.

And — what’s key here — they don’t do it out of some mistaken obligation to be hyper-productive every waking moment.

They do it because they know that when the muse calls, she doesn’t like being put on hold.

I’ve even pulled out my phone on a mountain hike to jot down an idea that came to me unexpectedly. That’s just the way it goes sometimes!

4. Stepping back in healthy ways

Time away from writing is just as important as the time you spend writing.

Stepping back rests your brain and lets the idea “bake” in your head, so you can come back to it and see areas of improvement that you couldn’t see on the first go.

But what I’ve found is that some “stepping back” activities are better than others for fostering new thoughts about the piece I’m working on. Scrolling Instagram, obviously, isn’t helpful. But there are a couple more activities I wouldn’t recommend when you’re letting an idea bake.

One — another form of writing

If you’re stepping back from a piece of fiction, don’t immediately switch to another form of writing, such as a Medium article. It confuses the brain about which pathways to explore and leads to unnecessary chaos (especially if you have ADHD like me!).

Two — strenuous exercise

Exercise is fantastic in nearly any context, but a workout where you need to concentrate on your form — strength training, for instance — isn’t ideal for creative baking. (I’ve hurt myself more than once when I zoned out while doing weights. Not fun.)

My tip — background activities

A “background” activity is something that you can do more or less on autopilot, so that your mind is free to think about the story at its own pace. My background activities of choice are:

• Tidying up the kitchen
• Cooking
• Light cardio workouts
• Going on a walk or hike (my favourite — outdoor time is the best all-round tonic ever!)

5. Appreciating the okay in its own right

I struggled with this for the longest time.

I thought there was no point in being just “okay” — that only my most stellar ideas deserved to be written.

But the okay, I’ve learned, is a valuable space. A broad one, where ideas of all kinds germinate and grow in directions that often surprise me. In my literary fiction, the okay can serve as a placeholder for — or a lead-up to — the good. And in my Medium pieces, the okay can become a decent article.

Particularly for Medium, I’ve learned to stop being so hung up on only publishing the most perfect articles. Because the truth is, I have no control over who likes what. I’ve had articles that I worked days on barely get any views — conversely, articles I breezed through got tons of views, and a couple were even Boosted.

This is why, these days, I focus on choosing a message to share and building a compelling story around it. Word and formatting choices? Important, but not that important either.

Note: This isn’t some spiel about how you should churn out content just for content’s sake. This is about not compelling yourself to only wait for the stellar, and about recognising that the okay is valid and can be meaningful — if not to you, then to someone else.

Takeaway

Don’t get me wrong — flow states are still critical if you want to make real progress with your writing.

But being scrappy adds up to much, much more than you can possibly imagine. Be it a few bits of progress on your novel in a busy week, or a timely recording of ideas prior to a designated flow session. Remember that saying about how time and tide wait for no one? Creativity is the same — and what’s more, if you miss her once, your chances of missing her the next time go up too.

Don’t let “being busy” stop you. Take the opportunities you get. With time, you’ll find that the flow state comes easier too — and that they’re flowier than you ever thought they could be.

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