Day 557: How many hours to work a day?
How I’ve been
I haven’t posted in a few days since I didn’t really have much to post. I had marketing followup tasks to do after I had that Facebook event on Saturday, which took a few hours every day. I’m always surprised how much time marketing takes. Time always seems to fly by faster when I’m doing it, but I can’t say I’m really enjoying myself as much as when I’m writing. Yet when I’m writing, the time passes so slowly. I guess when I do marketing, there’s just so much to do that I just focus and get it done, even when it takes several hours.
I haven’t been feeling terrible, but I’ve been about at 60-70% of normal. Every so often I’ll get some IBS discomfort, and the distraction as well as the tiredness that follows often makes it hard to get work done, but I’ve been keeping up my writing streak and doing at least the minimum each day.
Hours of work a day
I still haven’t gotten back to a full 5 hour work day, but I’m doing 1-3 hours. I also read in Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block that he and many other writers he knows only works about 3 hours a day before their brain shuts down.
He mentions about how writers are always “working” in their heads throughout the day. Another writing book, The Writer's Process: Getting Your Brain in Gear by Anne Janzer, mentions the exact same thing but goes into it in a little more detail. Also, another (non-writing) productivity book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, also cited a study that talked about how the subconscious can help process information and come up with solutions to problems when you’re doing mundane tasks.
So basically what they’re all saying is that while writers aren’t at the computer all day, their brains are still working on writing problems in the downtime.
I can sort of believe that, but I personally feel guilty not putting in a full 8-hour work day. I consider my Japanese study as well as my reading time to be part of my work day (2-3 hours), so ideally I’d like my writing time (which includes any marketing work I have to do) to take up 5-6 hours a day. That would make an 8 hour work day. And actually, if other writers do other writing-related business the other hours of the day, then 3 hours of writing and 4-5 hours of other things is probably a good use of time.
Right now, I’m at about 1-3 hours of writing a day (and for the past week, 1-2 hours of marketing work). I’m still keeping up with my Japanese study and my reading, so I’m at about 4-6 hours total of work a day. So I guess my estimate that I’m at about 60% of normal is about right.
However, I’m feeling a bit better every day. I am hopeful that if I can be super strict with my diet and figure out what I can eat so it’s not so miserable, I’ll eventually regain my energy and my health and be back to a full work day again.
***
Both the editing and the writing were slow going today, but it’s because I have a strongly emotional scene and those always take me longer. But I think I finally got the dialogue to flow the way I wanted it to. I suppose I’ll wait until I do the final edit and see.
I think that writing about the number of my work hours per day made me want to work more hours today. When doing my blocking after editing and writing, I did a little and then took a lunch break. But after lunch, I started a large word count monster on 4thewords in order to push myself to work a bit more than I have been the past couple weeks. I did a total of almost 4 hours of work today!
***
Editing: Time spent: 37 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 40 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 457 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 687 words/hour
Writing streak: 36 days
Blocking: time spent: 2 hours, 16 minutes
Blocking streak: 30 days
I haven’t posted in a few days since I didn’t really have much to post. I had marketing followup tasks to do after I had that Facebook event on Saturday, which took a few hours every day. I’m always surprised how much time marketing takes. Time always seems to fly by faster when I’m doing it, but I can’t say I’m really enjoying myself as much as when I’m writing. Yet when I’m writing, the time passes so slowly. I guess when I do marketing, there’s just so much to do that I just focus and get it done, even when it takes several hours.
I haven’t been feeling terrible, but I’ve been about at 60-70% of normal. Every so often I’ll get some IBS discomfort, and the distraction as well as the tiredness that follows often makes it hard to get work done, but I’ve been keeping up my writing streak and doing at least the minimum each day.
Hours of work a day
I still haven’t gotten back to a full 5 hour work day, but I’m doing 1-3 hours. I also read in Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block that he and many other writers he knows only works about 3 hours a day before their brain shuts down.
He mentions about how writers are always “working” in their heads throughout the day. Another writing book, The Writer's Process: Getting Your Brain in Gear by Anne Janzer, mentions the exact same thing but goes into it in a little more detail. Also, another (non-writing) productivity book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, also cited a study that talked about how the subconscious can help process information and come up with solutions to problems when you’re doing mundane tasks.
So basically what they’re all saying is that while writers aren’t at the computer all day, their brains are still working on writing problems in the downtime.
I can sort of believe that, but I personally feel guilty not putting in a full 8-hour work day. I consider my Japanese study as well as my reading time to be part of my work day (2-3 hours), so ideally I’d like my writing time (which includes any marketing work I have to do) to take up 5-6 hours a day. That would make an 8 hour work day. And actually, if other writers do other writing-related business the other hours of the day, then 3 hours of writing and 4-5 hours of other things is probably a good use of time.
Right now, I’m at about 1-3 hours of writing a day (and for the past week, 1-2 hours of marketing work). I’m still keeping up with my Japanese study and my reading, so I’m at about 4-6 hours total of work a day. So I guess my estimate that I’m at about 60% of normal is about right.
However, I’m feeling a bit better every day. I am hopeful that if I can be super strict with my diet and figure out what I can eat so it’s not so miserable, I’ll eventually regain my energy and my health and be back to a full work day again.
***
Both the editing and the writing were slow going today, but it’s because I have a strongly emotional scene and those always take me longer. But I think I finally got the dialogue to flow the way I wanted it to. I suppose I’ll wait until I do the final edit and see.
I think that writing about the number of my work hours per day made me want to work more hours today. When doing my blocking after editing and writing, I did a little and then took a lunch break. But after lunch, I started a large word count monster on 4thewords in order to push myself to work a bit more than I have been the past couple weeks. I did a total of almost 4 hours of work today!
***
Editing: Time spent: 37 minutes
Writing: Time spent: 40 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 457 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 687 words/hour
Writing streak: 36 days
Blocking: time spent: 2 hours, 16 minutes
Blocking streak: 30 days
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