How do you structure your time as a writer for maximum productivity? originally appeared on Quora – the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Rutger Bregman, author of Utopia for Realists, writer at The Correspondent, on Quora:
I don’t follow the news. I think that’s the most important thing when structuring your time as a writer for maximum productivity: the news is an incredible waste of time. It’s almost always about exceptions (corruption, violence, fraud, etc.), not about what happens every day. And if you want to be original as a writer, you shouldn’t read about what everyone else is reading already.
I’ve deleted Facebook/Twitter etc. from my phone, enabled parental controls and asked my wife to put in a code. I’ve since been cured of my smartphone addiction.
When I work on a new book or article, I have a very empty agenda. I think that’s crucial. I can’t really work when I’ve got other appointments, even if they take very little time.
Most of the time I’m reading books. I take a lot of notes and make short summaries on my computer. I don’t use 95% of what I read, but the thing is: you never know what might be useful in the future. I discovered a lot of the stories for my book by pure coincidence.
In the end, you just have to start writing. Just start writing sentences, and don’t worry if they’re awful. I know this sounds really stupid, but starting is actually the most difficult thing. You have to force yourself to sit and write. I always hate the beginning of the writing process, but I love it when I can start tinkering, polishing the text.
And to be honest, I don’t really have a strategy to be productive from that point onwards. When I know where I’m going, I just get addicted to it and read and reread my piece ten, fifty, maybe a hundred times.
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