How to Track Your Writing Habits

I just finished up my most productive month of writing ever. I set a goal to finish a draft of the project I’m currently working on, and while I didn’t meet my goal, I spent over 80 hours writing and wrote over 50k. Despite falling short, I consider it a win, if only because I showed up every single day, usually more than once, to wrestle with my words.

My productivity last month was a direct result of my new investment in tracking my writing habits, collecting data, and learning about what really works for me.

Right after the holidays, I binged a copy of DIY MFA by Gabriela Pereira. This book had some serious gems in it, but the most valuable piece for me was her insistence on tracking and analyzing your writing habits. This month I tracked the lengths of my sessions, rituals that got me in the zone, and my word counts for different types of activities. Below I explain what I did and what I learned about myself, but as Gabriela Pereira warns, “Don’t blindly follow someone else’s best practice. You need to test different approaches and only adopt the ones that give you the results you want,” so for each habit I’ve also illustrated how you can test for your own habits.

Length and Timing of Sessions

Every writer flourishes with a different rhythm. Some (like me) get up ridiculously early and bang out a few hours before they start their days. Some (like Rachel) stay up way too late to find their nocturnal genius. Others set aside whole Saturdays to get in the zone. Knowing when you write best is critical, because you should arrange your life around that time to the extent that it’s possible!

How to Test It:

• Pick a regular start time and length for a session, test it out for at least twelve consecutive sessions. Keep track of how you feel during the sessions (write it down!). Are the words flowing? Are you super exhausted? Are you frustrated?
• If it doesn’t seem to be working, switch to a different schedule and see if your creativity flows more freely. Make sure you give each arrangement a good number of days of repetition so you can get an average for your response. Ultimately, you’re looking for that sweet spot in time and length that maximizes your flow without burning you out.
• Pay careful attention to when you start to get frustrated, or slide off the rails—If it’s consistent, this is an indicator of your ideal average session length.
  

What I Learned:

I write most clearly in the morning. I pretty much knew this, but when I looked at my word counts in the morning vs. the afternoon it became painfully obvious. I also learned that after about an hour and a half I start to burn out. I’m far more efficient if I stop writing before that happens, even if I’m in the flow, because it will be much easier for me to pick back up when I’m fresh again.

Rituals To Get In the Zone

You can use external sensory signals to trick your mind into entering the creative zone before it thinks it’s ready. Are there specific clothes you write better in? Is there ideal lighting? Do you work best with a specific kind of tea? Or after you’ve had coffee? Do you need silence or noise? A specific kind of music? Have you ever tried meditating for five minutes? Or stretching to get your blood flowing?

How to Test It:

Pick a few sensory rituals (at least three!) and do them every writing session for at least twelve sessions. Do you start to notice a kickstart to your creativity when you begin your rituals? If so, that indicates it’s working! If not, or if you get tired of your ritual, find something else.

What I Learned:

Because I know I work best in the morning, I wake up with a coffee and some reading. Then I light a fir tree scented candle, make some cinnamon spice tea, and turn on my character-specific playlist. I did this ritual so much last month I now can’t smell the cinnamon tea without my mind rolling into inspiration overdrive.

Wordcount by Activity

Every writer thrives in a different stage of writing, whether it’s outlining, writing, or revising. I personally live off revising—and I can’t stand staring at a blank page. In order to truly understand your writing habits (which is critical to setting goals) you need to track how you perform in each type of activity.

How to Test It:

Every time you sit down to write, time yourself. You can either set a timer (which works well if you want to put pressure on yourself) or set a stopwatch (which will run passively in the background). Either way, use a clock! Otherwise you’ll over or underestimate the time you spent working—you want exact numbers! For each writing session, track if you outlined, wrote, or revised and how many words you wrote or worked through.

What I Learned:

• I outline and revise twice as fast as I write. This seems obvious, and yet my original January goals were based on a “Day 1: Outline, Day 2: Write, Day 3: Revise” schedule for each chapter. By Day 3, I knew it wasn’t going to work. I had placed all the pressure on myself to write in one day what I was outlining and revising in two. Now I start writing the chapter on Day 1, and I don’t panic if it’s not finished on Day 2, because I can both finish and revise on Day 3. ⁣
• I can’t write more than 800 words in an hour. Period. No matter what. Paired with the fact that I can only write for an hour and half before I lose steam. This puts into perspective how long it will take me to write 5,000 word chapters, and so I can now set more realistic goals for myself.
• I’m a reviser, not a drafter. This month I spent over 80 hours writing but only 30% was actually spent on drafting, while 60% was spent revising. Because I hate the blank page, I go over every scene several times in revising it. Now that I know this, I can put less pressure on myself to be perfect the first time through each scene.