Writing a book doesn’t just happen.
Once you’ve decided to dedicate yourself to the endeavor, you’ll need to create a balanced strategy where you dedicate enough time to the book — every week — to carry it forward until it’s published.
I say a “balanced strategy,” because working too much on your book may disrupt other important things like your work, family life or self care. While dedicating too little time will result in little to no progress.
This became apparent to me when I first started writing my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing …
I was determined to complete the book quickly, and began writing for about 4-hours per day. I did this for 2-3 months, and got a large portion of the book done. But then I realized my work life was way out of balance. I hadn’t been blogging, working on my website, or procuring new clients, so although my business still had multiple projects occurring, not as much new business was coming in because my time dedicated to writing the book tilted things out of balance.
It was time for a time correction (pun intended), so I created a new schedule where I would dedicate one full day to the book each week. Since the book was almost done anyway, this turned out to be a great decision. I was able to move the book forward consistently, and tend to work, family and self in a more balanced way.
Of course, there were additional days that I did some work on the book — but that one day was a planned, dedicated day and I worked my schedule around it accordingly.
Honestly, this was still hard. Having only four days per week to handle work-related items was still a challenge. Luckily, I have a team of nine other people who handle quite a bit of the work, so it was doable.
That said, this may not be the best time schedule for you. You might want to write for an hour a day, or if you have the time and energy — write madly on Saturdays or Sundays. The important thing is to experiment and see what works for YOU, and then stick to it.
Writing a book isn’t only about getting your thoughts and ideas on the page. It’s also about giving yourself the time to do so. I hope this article helps you set a writing schedule that brings you success!
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