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This post is about two great ways to find time to write more. We’ve already covered one, which is theming our days. Here, we’ll talk about two others. One is batching. The other is delegating or dumping things off your plate. You really can find time to write more.
Two more ways to find time to write more
First, let’s talk about one of the ways to find time to write more that is simple but not easy. That’s delegating or dumping things off your plate. It’s hard because it involves saying no to people you might care about. It also means asking others to do things that they might not want to do.
If you’ve always done the dishes, and now you’re asking your spouse or child to do them, they might balk at the change. Whether or not they understand that it will help you to find time to write more, they might not care. They might see it as “changing the social contract.”
Part of me wants us to tell children and spouses everywhere, “Too bad. Grow up and help out,” but that wouldn’t be very nice, and it probably wouldn’t be very effective, either. Lightening your load is clearly one of the ways authors can find time to write more. Helping them to understand the importance of lightening your load could make a big difference in their willingness to contribute.
It took some time in my household for my husband and children to start carrying their share of the weight, but they eventually did it. Time is a factor in maturation. Also, once they saw the tangible ways it was benefitting the whole family when they took some of the mental and physical load off of me, they settled in to it. From time to time, there may be a renegotiation at a family meeting, but the load stays off of me.
Doing less
Whether or not any of us wants to admit it, we are not superhuman. There are limits to what we can do. We might have disabilities, making it difficult or impossible for us to do particular tasks. There are also limits to what we can do in a certain amount of time.
I really am sorry. But you and I do have to delegate, defer, and even delete things from our to-do lists. To do something substantial that takes time, doing less, for a while, is necessary.
We must say no sometimes, especially when we have a big project like writing a book. We have to make time to write. If we expect to be around for a while, we also have to participate in self-care while writing a book. Both of those facts mean we must say no or not now.
Okay, now that we have that out of the way and you’re going to work on saying no more often, let’s look at one of the ways we can make the best use of the time we have freed up so that we free up even more time to write (or do other things).
Batching for productivity
Batching is when you do a large amount of a task at one time rather than doing the task repeatedly in small amounts over time. Here, we’ll talk about batch cooking and batch cleaning. Delegating or dumping is just what it sounds like: saying no. Letting someone else do the thing, or just walking away knowing it’s not your monkey.
On a podcast interview in 2o21, Kent Sanders asked me about the very practical things I do to increase productivity and efficiency. He mentioned that so many experts talk about the esoteric or theoretical and never get down to earth. He said that they don’t share the practical tips or tell how they actually go about doing things. But, he said, I am constantly talking about real-life things people can do, and he loves that.
I told him about some of the things I do to get certain things done quickly and efficiently, so I can find time to write more and to have more time for other things I love to do.
A couple of days after that, this happened:
Today, my husband and son unexpectedly brought home groceries. The moment I saw that, I flew into action with them. I turned on the oven and the tea kettle and started sorting.
Example of batch cooking made easy
I put a flat of chicken breasts and one of boneless thighs into a covered baking sheet and into the oven. Like a good manager, I FIFOed the old celery and carrots into a pan with a roast, chopped and added two onions, seasoned it, and put the roaster in the oven. In just a few minutes, the meats for the week were cooking.
About an hour later, I had also done these things:
- prepped several containers of fresh veggies
- made a large bowl of salad and packed it into a half-gallon jar
- made a gallon of iced tea
- canned the quart of chicken broth that came from the the breasts and thighs
- packed everything into the refrigerator
- started the dishwasher
- distilled a gallon of water
I cleaned as I went but finished up by wiping all the counters, the sink, and the floor.
In my forthcoming book, Your Book Bakery: Making it easy to write a book, I detail a full week’s worth of batch cooking. It has the whole process I go through on a typical Sunday afternoon. You’ll be able to follow right along and make your own batch of food, if you’d like. Of course, you have the option to choose another day to do some batch cooking if Sundays don’t work for you.
Benefits of batch cooking
Saving money is one benefit of batch cooking. You can scoop up whatever is on sale, and cook all of it at once, then freeze it. I once found giant red bell peppers on sale for $1 each, when they were normally $4 each. When I say “giant,” I mean they were 10 inches long and as big around as an adult forearm. Gonzo big peppers. That score saved me $27 and took me no time at all.
I bought nine of those peppers. Thinking back, I know I should have grabbed a cart and purchased five times as many as I did. They had about 500 piled up. But I was only there because my daughter needed to pick up something at that store, and I didn’t want to cause her any kind of delay. So I just took what I could carry in my arms, which turned out to be nine of those monsters.
Planting a garden, even a small one, is another fabulous way to save money and help you in your batch cooking. Imagine 55 bell peppers or 100 Roma tomatoes becoming ripe at the same time. Boom. You’ll have a large amount to freeze, can, or dehydrate—for pennies.
What’s really cool about this is that you don’t even have to buy plants or seeds. Often, you can grow your own food-producing plants by saving and using seeds from a piece of fresh produce you purchased at the grocery store. Some people claim that they won’t grow into plants, or that the plants will be sterile. I’ve done it for years, and all the ones I’ve tried it with have made fruits just fine.
Free food? Yes. Free food.
Saving time is another benefit.
When I got home, I sliced the big red bell peppers and froze them. It took me three minutes to core and slice nine peppers. Some people might say blanching is needed, but I don’t mess with that. I just freeze them, and they work great. That find saved me time as well as money.
Over the years, I have found that generally, one hour of batching saves ten hours of work. When it’s batch cooking, that hour is well invested because it not only saves time; it prevents any temptation to get fast food junk.
During the week, meals are quick and easy to get on the table:
- Breakfasts are simple and consist of one or more of the following: sheet pancakes, meat (bacon or sausage), eggs.
- Lunches are salads, sandwiches, or leftovers.
- Dinners involve nothing but reheating something I cooked on Sunday, and perhaps a salad or easy side to go with it.
Each meal takes about five minutes of hands-on time. It’s about one hour a week to get meals on the table, not counting the couple of hours of batch cooking (and cleaning) on Sunday afternoon. When we cooked each meal individually, it took up to 21 hours a week. And if you think about it, you’ll see that the majority of the time people spend cooking is standing around waiting for the foods to cook. If you allow all of the foods to cook at the same time, you only have to wait once a week instead of seven times a week. One hour really can save ten.
We just do week-sized batches. Ambitious people do month-sized batch cooking. I simply don’t have the counter space or the spoons to do that these days. When it comes to once-a-month cooking, these books are the classics!
Then there is this series:
Other ways to find time to write more
There are of course other ways to find time to write more. We’ll get into some of those in other posts.