So many of us are so incredibly busy, so how do you find the time to write your book? If you already have a big base of blog posts written that you can pull from, you’re already in good shape. But what about those of you who haven’t done much writing yet? These are my best tips to help you carve out the time you’ll need to work toward writing your book.
Mark out time to write
The biggest suggestion I can give you is to mark out a few hours per week, or even an hour per day, to work on writing. If you’re serious about writing a book, you need to set aside time to write. This may mean sitting down with your spouse or other important friends and family and having an honest conversation with them about how this is something you’d like to pursue. Maybe start by setting aside an hour a day for three days a week, then build up from there.
Be sure you set aside time to write at the time when your brain naturally works best. I’m definitely a morning person, and I make sure to do all of my creative work in the morning. If you’re a night owl, make sure your time is marked out in the evening. Writing takes a lot of brain power, so make sure you’re doing it when your brain works the best. You’ll get a lot more done in that hour if you do.
Write more blog posts
Writing an entire book can be daunting, but think about each blog post as a chapter or part of a chapter. Breaking down the writing process into smaller steps makes it a little easier. That’s one reason why bloggers make perfect blog authors—so much of the writing has already been done in your blog posts. You just need to re-purpose your content into your book.
Have you settled on a topic that you’d like to write your book about? (If not, read more about how to choose the topic for your book.) Commit to adding at least one new blog post to your blog each week about the topic. Try to make each blog post at least 500 words in length, although getting your ideas out is the most important thing. You can always add more and flesh out your ideas in greater detail later.
In your blog post, ask your readers if they have any questions on the topic. Have you written out your ideas clearly? Are there any paragraphs or ideas that you could explain in greater details or provide an example for? Do they have anything they would add? Their feedback is a great way to get notes to then go back and edit the same content a second time to then put in your book.
Minimize distractions!
When you’re writing, make sure you’re focused on writing. Consider turning off the Internet so you can’t intermittently check Facebook or other websites, and definitely silence your phone from all but the most important messages and calls. When you’re in the zone, you don’t want to be interrupted. If you’re really busy, you need to maximize every moment that you’ve carved out to work on writing, and that means you need to to truly focus on writing.