Kim Neville

A while ago at preschool my daughter was learning to tie bows. That day was a birthday for one of the other children and the class was gathering for a celebration. When the teacher asked if my daughter would like to join in, she said no.

“If I’m going to get this right,” she said, “I’ve got to practice.”

I love that kid.

It’s not hard to figure out where she learned this. Just go read my husband’s excellent blog post on choosing your work. It got me thinking about practice and how the concept of “work” has gotten a bad reputation.

My daughter goes to a Montessori preschool. Every day the children are expected to choose their own work. And yes, they call it work. Whether it’s fitting together puzzles or playing bells or polishing silver, it’s purposeful activity — i.e., work.

I’m so glad my daughter is learning early to value work. The prevailing attitude in our culture seems to be that it’s a necessary evil. You go to your job and put in your time so you can collect a paycheque, pay the bills and get on with life. Life — the stuff that happens outside of work.

In our house, work is inextricably linked with home. There is no “life” outside of work. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. My husband is an indie game developer and a consultant. The bulk of his work happens at home. I work part-time outside the home and I write at home whenever I can: while my daughter’s in school, in the evenings, on weekends.

Our work earns us money, of course, but it also brings us personal satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. When I tell people I work every Saturday, I get grimaces in return. (And yeah, some Saturdays I’d rather be at the beach. But I try to keep a balance between the beach days and the writing ones.) I suppose if I said I was writing a novel I’d get a different reaction.

Except writing is work. It’s hard. It’s also important to me. Calling it work gives it more weight. It signals to me and to others that what I’m doing is serious.

Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s unpleasant. Learning to knit or play ukelele is work. Growing an herb garden is work. Training for a marathon is work.

Anything worth doing requires work.

My daughter is still practicing her bows. They’re tricky, but she’s almost got them down. And, for the record, she did concede to a birthday cookie that day (she’s not a complete ascetic).

Now if only my family (me included) could extend our healthy attitude towards work to include house-cleaning.

Last year I developed a writing schedule that’s realistic and workable. I wish I could set aside more time for my creative work but I’ve spent two years playing with my routine, measuring out what I can sacrifice and what I can’t. Television and social life are already at a minimum. I won’t sacrifice exercise or sleep because my health is important to me. Hiring a house cleaner isn’t in the budget right now (someday, I hope).

Which leads me to the idea of working smarter. How can I get more out of the time I have?

That’s what I’ve been thinking about, and I’ve this is what I’ve come up with:

1) Stick to the schedule.

Just because I have a schedule doesn’t mean I always follow it. Last year when I got busy, I tended to drop an hour or two of my writing time at the end of the week in favour of errands or a night relaxing with my husband. Those things need to happen too (I’d like to stay married) but it became a habit that meant I was cheating myself of at least 10% of the time I’d “protected” for writing.

This year, that library book/block of cheese/episode of Sherlock will have to wait until I’ve fulfilled my promise to myself.

2) Turn off the Internet.

There’s something about consciously turning off my Internet access that signals “work time” for me in a more profound way than simply sitting at my desk. It reminds me why I’m there: to put words on a page. That’s it.

Also, the minute I get stuck in a scene, my instinct is to take a break (ie check email/Twitter/Reader etc.) Inevitably, when I get back to my document ten minutes later..I’m still stuck.

Now that I’m offline when I work, I find if I get up and stretch, or have a sip of tea, or sit and stare at my screen for five minutes, I’m usually off and rolling again.

3) Notepad beside the computer.

This is the SINGLE BEST THING I’ve done for my productivity. The notepad is for random thoughts that prompt to get up from your desk or turn on the Internet. Need to clip your fingernails? Write it on the notepad. Forgot to call your mom? On the notepad. Just thought of the perfect Facebook status? Notepad.

Once it’s written down, you can forget it. Those things can be done when your writing time is over.

4)  Choose appropriate tasks.

Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays are my best writing days. I always have a few hours to dig into something. Those are the days I work on new scenes or tackle revisions. Monday and Tuesday evenings, when I’m still rested from the weekend, I’ll work on blog posts or brainstorming ideas for new stories.

I resist the temptation to fill the large blocks of time with small tasks like writing books and exercises, or researching agents and short story markets. I save those for Wednesday and Thursday evenings, when I know I’m tired and my creative juices are low.

Planning my time ensures that the most important stuff gets done when I’m at my best.

5) Mental preparation.

This is tricky because “presence” is something I want to work on this year. So while it helps to spend some time thinking about the work I plan to do that day or evening, I don’t want it to distract me during family time.

Instead, I try to think about it while I wash dishes, either in the morning before I start work, or in the evening before I put my daughter to bed. Ten minutes to focus on the work ahead seems to prime my brain and make it easier to get started when I finally do sit down to work.

I’ve been using these strategies for a couple of weeks and I’ve already noticed a huge improvement in my productivity. If any of these prove to be helpful to you, I’d love to hear about it. Or, if you have any tips or techniques of your own, please share in the comments!