15 Minutes EVERY Day

I recently heard a local author talk about how she got into the habit of writing consistently.  She said she always thought she needed a big chunk of time to write, and so she just kept waiting for a day when she would have that big window of opportunity.  But with young children, and a busy life, she never could find that long stretch of time she thought she needed.

Then one day, she said, she heard Elizabeth Gilbert say something about setting a small and attainable writing goal.  And then to commit to it, each day, even if for just 5 minutes. Show yourself you mean what you say when you make that commitment.

So this author I was listening to decided to write for 15 minutes, every single day.  No days off. 

Apparently, that method somehow got her to the status of New York Times Bestselling Author.  I'm pretty sure she got to a point where she was writing more than 15 minutes a day, but when she started, she started there.  Because you have to start somewhere.  Somewhere that you know you can succeed.

I used to write on my blog a lot more consistently.

Over the months and years, I've gotten out of the habit.  I often think, "I should write a blog post about this!" And even more importantly, "I WANT to write a blog post about this!" But instead, I go for the most immediate way of sharing- I post on Instagram instead.

The story I tell myself is that to write a decent and coherent blog post of any sort takes at least an hour.  And usually, in that moment of inspiration when I want to write for my blog, I don't have a full hour. But maybe if I just kept it down to a 15-minute-a-day commitment, I could get back into the swing of things around here.

You could apply this 15 minute idea to anything creative that you want to do but, like me,for some reason you keep putting it off. If we all wait around for huge chunks of creative time, we may end up creating absolutely nothing.

So there it is.  15 minutes of writing on my blog each day. Please note,  I didn't say a post a day.  Just 15 minutes of me drafting, editing and eventually, posting on my blog each day.