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Happy writing everyone. Today’s episode focuses on creating a new routine for your writing or other work during social distancing. I know I’m still changing and adjusting. Trying to get up early again after letting myself and my family sleep in… well, it’s an ongoing challenge.
Here at the Dowell house, when we aren’t trying to make a balance between work and home (when both are in the same place!), we’ve been keeping spirits up by doing all the COVID-era cliches. Steve’s been baking nonstop. I’ve dyed my hair a weird color (purple!) and started a journal. We’ve all been gardening. All we need is a sourdough starter to hit bingo.
Two announcements:
Writing Without Childcare is now free as an ebook! Find it on Amazon here, Kobo here, and this link leads to Apple, B&N, and eventually library apps.
Next, for the first time, I’ve got a transcript for an episode. I’m trying out different transcription services, planning to make this a regular thing. Transcription make podcasts accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing, and it improves SEO, making the show easier for folks to find. Here it goes!
Transcript below:
Please note: This is a machine generated transcript that I have proofed only once, for time’s sake. It’s not been edited for style and grammar. Therefore, as is common in speech, sentence fragments and run-ons abound. Episode transcripts are not representative of the quality of work I provide as an editor.
So today I’m talking about routines in this weird social distancing era that we are all experiencing and specifically about making yourself a new routine to get your writing done, to get your work done, to get your house work done, whatever it is that you are trying to do. Now, I want to preface this episode by saying, that if you don’t want to write during this incredibly stressful period that’s more than okay. It’s okay to press pause on your creative work. And you shouldn’t feel any shame about that. There’s a lot of articles and blog posts and podcast episodes going around lately about how we can all really focus in and be hyper productive while social distancing. And that’s fine to do. For many folks, that’s how they cope with a scary situation they can’t control, to just really throw themselves into work because that is something they can control.
But sometimes that discourse goes too far and shames people who are really just trying to hang on, and frankly just hanging on is an achievement right now. So, even though this is a productivity focused episode, especially for those of us who really can’t press pause on our writing–it’s part of our income–or those us who just don’t want to press pause and want to keep going, even if it’s at a slower pace–none of this is to say that you have to be productivity focused during this time. Survival, mental health, and self care are honestly pretty good goals right about now. So going into this, let’s launch right into the first tip for making yourself a new schedule. I don’t know about you, but my old schedule doesn’t work anymore.
I know we’re not alone. Our family, you know, we have all been sleeping in later, eating at weird times, and for those first few weeks it’s more than understandable. We were just really kind of coping with a new situation. But now I’m trying to reorganize and get myself in more of a work mode, even if that work has to be slowed considerably. So the first thing I’m going to do is, and I am doing right now, to some degree, is work on me first. New schedules, you know, take some time to implement, to get it right. And especially when we’re talking about sleep schedules, eating schedules, holding yourself to the schedule is going to be easier than trying to hold you and your kids to it, if you’ve got kids. Trying to wake them up earlier when you are just now trying to get up earlier, that is a recipe for crankiness at the best of times. And we’re all kind of cranky anyway, being holed up in our houses. So it’s best to start with you. And then if you’ve got kids that you need to get onto a better schedule–I know that’s the case for me–it’s way better if I adjust my sleep schedule first and then try to adjust theirs and get them on a better path towards regular play and learning to try and replace what they’re not getting anymore at preschool.
Point number two: Clothes matter. They may not for everyone, but they do matter for me. I know I am way more productive if I get a shower in the morning and change into daytime clothes. So a blouse and some non PJ pants. Now, I do slippers all day and that doesn’t bother me. Shoes are optional in my opinion. Some people can be really productive in PJs, but I think a lot of us do need that mental transition from sleep clothes, relaxed clothes to work clothes. And again, this work could just be housework. This work could just be, you know, homeschooling your kids, or this work could be your day job you’re doing from home or your writing or all of those things. But the clothing helps us make that transition from relaxation to activity.
Number three: It’s a new routine. And that means it’s not gonna look exactly like your old routine. For one thing, everybody is under at least a little bit more stress than they used to be. If you’ve got children, you are now working with your kids hanging around your house and that’s gonna look different than the kinds of work you would do in an office, in a coffee shop, in a library. So don’t feel like you have to completely replicate your old routine or your kid’s old routine.
Number four: Because this is a new routine in a totally new environment and new circumstance, you can also use this as a way to embrace opportunity. For example, if waking up at 5:00 AM didn’t really work for you, but you had to do it because you had a commute, well guess what? Your commute is gone so you can wake up a little bit later if you want to. You can also embrace during the day opportunities. For example, my husband and I have been routinely going for walks, right before or right after dinner in those evening hours. That would have been much harder to do before. And actually I don’t think I remember us doing that for a long time. Not since we’ve had children. Because he would be coaching lacrosse in the evenings and I would have the kids, and if either of us really wanted to work out, we had to get up super early. So enjoying an evening walk has been one thing that we’ve been able to embrace because of this change.
Number five: Don’t forget stress relief. It’s easy, especially for folks who are working a day job from home and trying to write to totally forget about taking some time just for themselves. But we all need a little bit of time to relieve some stress, to do a hobby, to read a book, or even just like veg out and watch Netflix on your phone. You know, it doesn’t have to be a productive hobby. It just has to be whatever you need to do to regulate your emotions and get ready, get back to being you. And I want to stress that this is separate from your writing time. Because I think a lot of us writers have experienced this. We’ll mention that we’re going to go do something creative or we’re going to do something related to our writing. And especially those of us who are parents, we’ll get the line, “Oh, isn’t that nice that you can take some time for yourself? Isn’t that nice? You get to do something for you.” And yes, it’s nice. I don’t know about you, but I love being a writer. It’s the job I’ve always wanted, but it’s also my job. And whether or not you’re at a level of getting paid for this, it is a job. Creative work is still work. And if all of the time that you would have budgeted to relieve stress is taken up with your creative work, you’ll burn out.
So make sure that you have some time to veg out, play an instrument, just sit there. Whatever you need to do. That’s not your work. That’s not your housework, that’s not your writing. Just time to be you.
On that same note, number six: If you’re a parent and you are parenting with a partner–solo parents, bless you, they have it so much harder during this time–but if you’re parenting with a partner and it’s at all possible, try to swap out time so that each of you has focused work time without the kids nearby. By not nearby, I mean like not in the same room with you, because unfortunately we can’t all get very far away from our children. I know we are in this tiny townhouse and really the only thing we can do is like lock the door of our room if we need to get away for a bit. So it’s important to balance that out, especially when both parents are working from home.
Because unfortunately what sometimes happens, and I hope it’s not happening to you, is one parent will have all the focus time, the nine to five, basically just sitting in their home office or their bedroom like they’re at work. The other parent is juggling their work and the kids and everything else. And that’s not fair on that parent. It’s not fair on the family. So it’s important to try and make as much of a balance as possible. One person may have more time demands, meetings and things happening at certain moments, than the other, but try and give each parent that focused time if at all possible.
Number seven: Lower your expectations. Everybody is really stressed out right now and even if you think you are kind of playing it cool and doing a good job–and you probably are doing a good job–you’re probably more stressed than you realize. So lower your expectations. You are not working in your usual environment. You are not working under usual circumstances. A good rule of thumb that I’ve seen kind of thrown around is to have no more than three items on your to do list for a day. One big priority and two smaller ones. If you get through those three items, great, you can add more. But if you had like a 10 item to do list and you didn’t get through them all, you probably wouldn’t feel as good as you did if you had a three item to do list and you got to add three more.
I mean, which day feels better at the end of the day? So it’s, it’s a really a mind game there, because ultimately you’re getting the same amount done, but it changes the way you feel about it. So lower your expectations and then lower them a little bit more. And if you exceed them, wonderful. If you just meet them, then you still don’t feel bad about it.
Number eight: Adjust as needed. So this is your schedule. You’re making it, nothing’s set in stone. If it doesn’t work after a couple of days, tweak it, or give it a total overhaul. It probably is going to need some adjustments. Furthermore, the fact that many of us here are working from home and social distancing so a lot of those external commitments have now become less attached to a certain time means we can be more flexible in our schedules and make schedules that work for us, for our families and for our work.
So those are my eight tips on making your schedule, and it is going to take some time to do that. I’m still not quite living up to the schedule that I would like. Hopefully as I progress through the week, I will again lower my expectations and find that sweet spot and something that works for us. But I’d love to hear what you are doing in terms of stress relief to get through this weird time in our history.