Well, I had thought I was going to talk about how I use timers and rewards to fuel my writing life, but yesterday I realized I don’t use timers and rewards. I want to and I used to, but I haven’t added that back into my routine this year YET.
Late last year, while I was working on the second draft of my novel, I was using my lovely Alexa to set a timer for doing word sprints. Once I was done with my session then I could either do another one (if I had time) or I would stop for the day feeling quite proud of myself and give myself a reward or a treat. At the time it was drinking my coffee. That’s right, I was delaying coffee (one of my absolutely favorite things) until after I had gotten in my writing session for the day. And it worked!
What happened? I got done with the draft and sent it to my editor and decided I needed a break. And I did need a break from writing and editing and all that, but I should have kept up with the timer/reward system in some way because I am having one heck of a hard time getting back into the swing of things this year now that I have a third draft to do.
The other thing that happened is I created a new morning routine that I thought was working, but then I realized just yesterday that I don’t have time to write now. I was trying to do it in the afternoon after my son got home from school while he did his math homework, but that wasn’t working. I tried doing it before I started my day job but that wasn’t working either.
I knew something needed to change, so I thought through my morning routine and decided to switch things up going forward. I wake up at 5:30 am and wash my face, brush my teeth, grab a glass of lemon water and meditate. That takes a little less than 30 minutes. Last month I would then journal and scroll my phone for another 30 minutes before waking my son up. NOW I’m going to take my laptop with me into the living room and write after I meditate. AND I will add back in the coffee as my reward if I write for at least 15 minutes.
How about you? Do you use timers and rewards in your everyday life? Are your routines working for you or are they causing you stress? Is there any way you can make a tiny (or big) change and try that for a week or two – as an experiment – to see if it makes a difference? Let me know by commenting below and we can do this together!
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