How To Make Time For Writing

How do you create a plan for writing and how do you stick to it? I play on a club national volleyball team and go to a highly rigorous school and take advanced classes. I often feel stressed to fit everything into my schedule while still allowing time to enjoy my life and maintain a social life as well. I was wondering if any of you had ideas how to balance things, allowing me to continue doing the thing that makes me happy, writing.

I try to reserve the hour from 6-7 in the morning for my writing (although sometimes I have overnight shifts at work). I'd appreciate some tips on this as well.

Personally, I feel the most creative when I just wake up, but if you're a night person, you might like to reserve an hour at night when it's quiet.

Pretty much the main thing I can say is that you have to actively reserve time for writing, and then actually write during that time. You have to be deliberate about it. Take a look at your day - do you spend time doing anything you don't really need to do? Try to cut down on the unneeded activities and use that time for writing.

In particular, try to cut down on "wasted" time - time you spend checking your phone or scrolling through social media, that sort of thing. Those few minutes add up. Use that time to write instead.

In general, analyze your day and make a schedule that allows you time for everything - school, volleyball, friends, and writing, and then stick to it if at all possible.

Set tiny little goals. You might not have time to do an hour's worth of writing, or even half an hour, but you can get one sentence down. You can just dash off one sentence of whatever project you want to work on every day, and you'll find that some days you can squeeze out more writing than that. But keep the minimum low.

I personally find it really discouraging to sit down with large goals, with "it must be this block of time", because life changes. By keeping small goals, they're like pebbles in your weekly plans: easier to slip in the cracks of free time when you have, say, 15 minutes after lunch when you're done eating but don't have to go to class yet. Or on the commute home. Or right before bed.

And you'll often go past those goals, which makes you feel great. But you can't get that consistent confidence boost if you set the goal too high, because you won't hit or surpass it as often.

It also helps if there's a creative writing class you can take at your school. That's how I've gotten back into the groove of writing every day.

I've once involved in LMS, and the system for that thing is that you post the latest installment of your novel once a week. I found this rather helpful, although the progress you'd make isn't going to be as rapid as you like it to be. Making time just one hour for writing is enough if your schedule is packed; the important thing is you're consistent with your writing, and don't make it a seasonal activity.