Writing when you have a full-time job, family commitments or just a busy life isn’t easy. It can be really hard to find the time for writing when you’re exhausted but it is doable. You might have to be strict with yourself, especially at first, but you can do it.

I’m not going to tell you that you have to ‘write every day’ because I don’t know if that’s realistic, but consistency is the only way to gain momentum. The more often you do it, the easier it’ll be.

Consistency is key

If you’re trying to start writing or get back into it after a break, the words probably aren’t going to come easily at first. Don’t get discouraged. Find thirty minutes in your day. Whether that’s in the morning before work, on your lunch break or after the kids have gone to bed, I know you spend more than thirty minutes looking at Facebook, down a TikTok rabbit hole, half-watching TV while on your phone or playing Candy Crush.

Set yourself a timer and put the phone away for thirty minutes and try and write consistently for that time. Get an app that rewards you for a consistent streak if you’re someone who likes the dopamine hit of a little treat.

Banish distractions

Put your phone in another room, get yourself a Brick, put it on airplane mode, use an app with a timer designed to stop you using your phone – I’m a big fan of Hank Green’s app Focus Friend.

For those thirty minutes, just write. If you can’t do thirty, do twenty or fifteen.

Accept that (sometimes) writing is work

Here’s the thing: if you wait for inspiration to find you to start writing, it probably never will. Or if it does, it’ll take a really, really long route to get there. When life is busy and you’re overwhelmed, creativity is often the first thing that goes out the window. You have to push through, even when it feels like you’re wading through mud and you’ll never get there.

Sometimes you have to find the inspiration yourself – listen to music, read a book, go for a walk – but make sure you come back and write. It’s not always going to be easy, but nothing worth doing is.

A person's hands above a writing notebook. They are holding a pen and there is a half-eaten croissant and a black coffee next to them

Make it a competition

If you can find some friends to do this with, even better. Join a writing group if you can find one. If you can’t find one in real life – or if the idea of that sounds terrifying – look online.

Do writing sprints together where all of you set a timer and you write for that time without stopping. Often they’re just ten or fifteen minutes and the goal of sprints is to just get words on the page, but turning it into a competition and seeing who can write the most words in that time might help!

Set yourself a time goal, not a word goal

I know that I just told you that if you write 500 words a day, you’ll have a first draft by the end of the year but some days, the words flow like a beautiful cascading waterfall and everything is beautiful… and some days there is a drought and everything is terrible and you want to throw your laptop into a waterfall and run away and quit. That’s okay.

Commit to showing up for a certain amount of time, not to writing a specific number of words. Some days you’ll be possessed by a writing demon and you’ll write three thousand, other days you’ll drag yourself through writing fifty. It’ll even out over time.

Use prompts

Sometimes when the words aren’t flowing, you need something to kickstart your inspiration so try writing prompts. You don’t have to use them in the novel itself, they can just be little side projects to get your brain working, but they might get your creative juices flowing. I’m a big fan of a three-word prompt. The aim is very simple – you just have to get the three words into your next writing session or sprint. There are loads of random word generators online for this sort of prompt, or you can just ask a friend to give you some, but here’s a free one for you from me:

sticky, olive, torch.

Personally, I think these prompts are the most fun when the words are as random as possible because that’s when your brain and creativity can really go wild. If you use these words, please let me know – I love seeing what people come up with!

Tell people!!

(Bonus points to you if you read that in a Russian accent, iykyk).

If you’re not good at self-discipline or you have a lot of personal commitments that are going to pull you in different directions, tell people that this is something you want to make a priority and ask them for help in doing that.

You can tell your partner, you can hire a book coach for accountability coaching (shameless plug – hi, I offer coaching now!), you can tell your neighbour, or your best friend, or your sister. It doesn’t matter who you tell, but the more people that know, the more motivation and/or pressure you’ll probably feel to do some work on it.

Get them to ask you if you’ve written today, or prompt you to go and write if you haven’t. Nobody wants to tell everyone they’re writing a book and then tell everyone they’ve done nothing on it every time they’re asked.

Separate writing from editing

One of the easiest ways to make no progress is by spending all your time going over what you’ve already written and editing it. Use your writing time as writing time and resist the urge to go back over what you’ve already written.

Whatever typos or inconsistencies you have introduced at this stage are a problem for Future You.

Accept that your first draft is (probably) not going to be good

Writing and editing takes time and a first draft is not a finished one. Even if you can get 80-90,000 words on a page, there’s going to be some work to do. That’s fine – you can’t fix what doesn’t exist. Nobody can speak a language fluently after their first lesson or play a musical instrument perfectly on first try either.

Writing is the same as any other skill – it takes practice.

Two sheets of lined paper on a pink background. One is blank and clean, the other has been screwed up and straightened out again

Grab time where you can

A lot of people will tell you to write in the same place every day to form a habit, and if you can do this then do! But I’m going to tell you something different too: write wherever and whenever you can find the time.

Life is busy and sitting down at your desk isn’t always practical or possible. If you know you’re not going to get twenty minutes to sit down at your laptop and write later, use your phone for good and write in your Notes app. Make use of the dead time while you’re waiting for your doctor’s appointment or on your commute (unless you drive – I think it goes without saying, but please don’t write and drive).

Not all of these will work for everyone but the key thing to remember is that life is always going to get in the way if you let it.

You have to accept that if you wait to find three hours every day of uninterrupted time to write, you’re probably not going to get it, and sometimes that’ll be the case for your designated thirty minutes too.

Reclaim your time wherever and whenever you can. The more you do it, the easier it’ll become.

How to build a writing habit.