It’s that magical time of week: yes, it’s another Writers Wednesday! I’ve been slacking a bit with my book writing, but that’s because I’ve been POURING so much into this blog. I love blogging, so I have no regrets. But, I still have book writing goals that I need to accomplish this year, so I had to buckle down over the past few days and get my book writing schedule back on track.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was redoing my daily schedule. This post is a continuation on this thought. The original goal was to devote some of my weekend hours to my writing. I’ve actually done that a bit, but there’s a caveat. Like I’ve already mentioned, my writing time has been directed toward blogging, so I actually haven’t worked much on my books. Further, the time I can devote to book writing on the weekends is minimal: as it turns out, I really do need more rest, and the weekend is the perfect time to do that.

So I’ve had to revisit my ideas for creating a good writing schedule. For the past couple of days, I’ve tried something that I think will be sustainable for a long time. What I’ve found really helpful with creating a realistic schedule is, instead of doing my book writing on the weekend, schedule between 15 and 30 minutes to work on my books each day. I took some of the pressure off of myself by not requiring a huge block of time, but I appreciate that even someone as busy as I am can do 15 minutes of book work.

To clarify, “book work” isn’t just writing for me, but it encompasses all of the work that I put toward book creation. That could mean selecting images for a specific book that I’m writing, or compiling sources that I will reference in one of my books, or (as with the case of the children’s book series that I’m writing) perfecting templates that I can reuse for future books. And yes, it could mean writing as well. But so long as I do something book-related, I count it as a win.

To help me stick to my schedule, I’m using a daily timer. The timer rings at the same time daily, so I’m making this part of regular routine. I feel so accomplished each time that I spend a little time on my books: it feels great!

Do you all have any schedule hacks that you’ve used to stay on track with your writing? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!