Time Bandits

By Mary Fechter

I was really looking forward to my summer vacation—ten weeks of free time, all the time I needed to write. With seventy-three days off, if I wrote three pages a day, I could be nearly done with my Intimate Moments by August.

Imagine my horror when, ten days into my holiday, I only had seven pages! How could that happen? I’d plotted the story, knew my characters. Why did I only have seven pages?

I’ll tell you why. I wasn’t sitting down to write. I was allowing myself to be distracted by those time bandits.

You know who they are: chores, family and friends, the telephone and e-mail, shopping and errands, hobbies, TV.

Since I came up with the idea for this article while mowing the lawn, I’ll start with chores. I’ll admit, I let tasks slide during May especially, telling myself I would have all the time in the world to clean once school was out. The problem was, by the last day of school, the house was so bad it took a lot more time to accomplish.

So I broke it into small steps, room by room, even breaking the rooms into smaller components—furniture, floor, windows. I delegated what I could. When my son wasn’t old enough to mow, he was old enough to sweep the patio when I’d finished. He knows how to sort laundry and put clothes away, just steps away from taking over that chore.

I know several people who hire a cleaning lady to come in every week, or even every two weeks. This small expense may feel decadent, but consider it an investment in your writing. I keep trying to hire my mom, but I’d have to clean house first.

We also ate out a lot toward the end of school. I thought fast food saved time. Fast food isn’t as fast as it used to be, so I looked for simple, fast recipes to save me time in the kitchen. There are a lot of items in the grocery store designed for the anti-chef in your household.

Next on my list are family and friends. My husband and son are pretty understanding of my writing time, but kids can only play alone for so long. So we had a deal. I’d take him to the skatepark and one other place, like the zoo or Fiesta Texas, during the week, and we’d spend the rest of the week at home. That way I feel like a good mom and I get my time too. Plus I use these outings as Artist Dates—there’s no better place to people watch than in line at an amusement park.

Especially during the summer, friends think you have endless time, but you need to budget. Answering machines and caller IDs are miracles of modern science. Guess what? You don’t have to be disturbed if you don’t want to be. Log those calls and return them in a chunk. And invest in a cordless phone. How did I ever live without one of these? That way you can do chores while returning calls and you don’t feel guilty.

My Achilles heel is e-mail, as anyone who’s online knows. I’m drawn to the computer again and again, which is bad, because I write longhand. I’m on a depressingly large amount of e-mail loops and a regular on eHarlequin. I love the Internet.

So I have to discipline myself. I check e-mail first thing in the morning, while I’m eating breakfast, and I check it again in the late afternoon. If the pull to check my e-mail is too great, I make a deal with myself. If I finish these five pages, or this chapter, I can check my mail.

You can do the same with those addictive computer games as well. Whoever invented Freecell? Could it be….SATAN?

I’m never bored. When I’m not writing, I’m sewing or gardening or reading. While these are time bandits, they also inspire creativity. I can pin a hem and plot my next scene, or dig a hole and puzzle out motivation.

But they take away from writing time, so I break it down into smaller tasks—cut out the dress today, put the zipper in tomorrow, until it’s all done.

That way it doesn’t take up chunks of writing time. Plus, I keep my handwork by the phone so I can sew while returning those calls.

Shopping and errands are worse time bandits than e-mail, especially when my mom calls and announces she’s driving out to Garden Ridge today, don’t I want to come? The first week of summer I was running almost every day. I decided I couldn’t afford that, either time- or money-wise, so I’m lumping my errands on one day, preferably a day I’m going to have to get out anyway.

Lots of short trips are time killers, so you may as well lose one whole morning once a week. I’m anal enough to know what times all the stores open, so I plan my shopping that way.

Personally, TV isn’t much of a distraction for me—I do my best writing during the late night sitcoms. I’m sure I could probably write more if I turned it off, I’m just afraid to try. Don’t deprive yourself, but don’t be afraid to turn it off if there are no programs you like. Don’t flip through again and again and again trying to find something that looks good to finally settle on a Magnum PI rerun. Oops, am I the only one who does that? It must come from living with men. If you can’t write with the TV on and can’t miss CSI, write Friday. Can’t miss Arrested Development? How’s Monday?

Know your weaknesses and work around them. Designate a writing time at your most productive time and forbid interruptions. Recruit your family and technology to manipulate your time to your advantage.

Me, I’m going to reward myself for this article with a nap.

To read last month's Writer's Life article, click here

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