When life feels packed to the brim, it can be very difficult to find any leftover time to write. And I really get how difficult it can be when life is busy, particularly if you have a stressful job, a young child waking up in the night, financial worries, or other pressures added into the mix.
If things are busy for you, you've got a couple of choices:
You can take a break from writing. There's no shame in this, and if you're feeling stressed out by trying (and perhaps failing) to squeeze writing in, having a proper break from it might be the best thing for you. This is particularly true if your busyness is time-limited and you'll be back into your normal routine soon.
OR
You can fit writing into your life as it currently is. You might not be able to fit in as much writing as you'd ideally like. You may need to tweak some other aspects of life to make any room for it at all. But even a little bit of writing will add up.
Here are three practical things you can do to fit in some writing:
#1: Map Out a Typical Day or Week
Get a piece of paper, and jot down the things you typically do during a normal day. If your days vary a lot (e.g. you work shifts or weekends look very different from weekdays) then map out a typical week.
It may be that a lot of your day is taken up with work, childcare, or other commitments ... but hopefully you'll find at least some time you could use for writing. You don't have to write every day, either: if you can find an hour once or twice a week, that's fine.
Go Further: Supercharge Your Writing Week has an "ideal week" planner where you can map out all the different elements of your week ... and figure out where writing can fit in.
#2: Get Help (and Consider Paying)
Asking for help can be tough, I know. But other people are often only too glad to be able to lend a hand – you just need to tell them what they can usefully do for you. That might mean asking your partner to do more around the house, or getting your mum/brother/friend to take the kids off to the park every Sunday afternoon. It could simply mean asking them not to interrupt when you're writing!
Don't be afraid to ask for what you want: other people, particularly non-writers, won't generally think to just offer.
If it's affordable for you, think about hiring help. If your children are very small, having a babysitter one morning a week could give you some much-needed breathing space and time to write. If you work full-time, having a cleaner come in weekly could free up more time at the weekend.
Go Further: Supercharge Your Writing Week has a whole section on getting support from the people around you (and a section on what to do if your week doesn't go smoothly).
#3: Work in Short Sessions
When my kids were very young, most of my fiction writing slotted into half-hour sessions between their teatime and bathtime, a point in the day when my husband was always home!
These days, I have a bit more flexibility ... but I also have a full-time day job as a writer, so I'm still often writing for short sessions, and I don't very often manage a full hour of fiction writing.
I know that 15 or 30 or 45 minutes often doesn't feel like enough time to write – and I know how frustrating it can be to get really into writing, only to have to suddenly stop. But even if you think it won't suit you, try writing for short sessions (maybe in your lunch break or even on your commute). You might find that it goes better than you expected.
Go Further: Supercharge Your Writing Week has a printable weekly planner that you can use to list your goal(s) for the week and figure out what writing you're doing on which days. If you struggle with the stop-and-start nature of short writing sessions, give this a try.
When life is busy, or when you simply need a break, it's fine to set your writing aside for a while. But if you want to fit writing in, it's also fine to fight for that as something important in your life.
