Today’s reverb10 prompt:
Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
What doesn’t contribute to my writing is not writing. When I’m writing– anything except, perhaps, the most tedious of administrative reports–it tends to nurture creative seedlings for other unrelated projects. If I’m writing an academic essay, I’ll get ideas for a blog post. If I’m writing a blog post, I’ll get ideas for a coaching tool. I like the cross-pollination of working on several different kinds of projects over the course of a day or a week.
Now, obviously, there are many points in the day when I’m literally not writing. But if I’ve started the day off with a few minutes in my notebook, then thoughts and ideas show up to feed the writing, even if it’s while I’m washing dishes or driving or whatever.
I’ve written over at ProfHacker about the importance of keeping an idea notebook — I use my notebook to capture thoughts, to focus my productivity, and to jumpstart more formal kinds of writing. But what gets in the way of my writing is waiting too long to get to my notebook. I walk or run with my dogs every morning for at least an hour, during which I often get good insights for my current projects.
But just thinking an idea isn’t enough. For me, if it doesn’t get down in writing then it has a tendency to evaporate or turn mushy, nibbled away by doubt or impatience.
So I can see that one of the things that gets in my way is if I wait too long between coming home from our walk and sitting down with the notebook. While I’m busy throwing the tennis ball for our middle dog, cooking oatmeal, and transferring laundry from the washer to the dryer, my ideas risk disintegrating. It’s maybe only 15 minutes total time, but I think I need to get to an idea catcher more quickly.
With my coaching clients, I often ask a question that is the inverse of this prompt, because I think it’s helpful to look at what you’re already doing well. I ask: what do you do that supports your writing? what makes it more enjoyable or more productive?
I know for me that developing sustainable daily habits around writing and engaging my tactile senses by writing longhand are key. So today, I sat down with my notebook for a few minutes immediately after returning from our walk. I’ll try to integrate that into my morning routine over the next week and see what kind of difference it could make.