Even Writers Need Scheduled Care
here's what mine looks like
I found myself googling recently “daily schedule for an author” and that’s when I realized that most of us have no idea what we are doing and we are constantly trying to figure out how to be the thing we are—authors, writers, people who can work from anywhere, which means the flexibility of the job can be wonderful and wildly stressful at the same time.
I’m not one of those authors who wakes up at 4am, writes for three hours, takes a break, and gets back to it for another six. There are rhythms to my body, my days, just as there are rhythms to the world around us, and if I deny that, my work suffers. It works for some of us! I’ve just realized it doesn’t work for me.
So, every few months as the seasons change, I ask myself a series of questions when it comes to my work:
Where do I need better boundaries?
How am I feeling about my speaking events and the talks I write?
What routines help me get the most done?
How do I schedule in care so I don’t get overwhelmed?
That last question is the one I want to focus on today, because I talk to a lot of authors, those who have written multiple books, those just getting started, and we are all trying to figure out how to live into this career that no one prepares us for.
We don’t live in the Hemingway era or write like Austen, as much as we romanticize those times. We live in a world that bombards us with distractions, a time when we aren’t just writers but social media managers, email corresponders, event planners, and so much more.
So when I talk to other authors, I remind them how necessary their care is on a daily basis. I think there are a few strange perceptions of authors—do you sit around at home drinking coffee and waiting for inspiration to come? Do you head to New York every week meeting with publishing executives to “get the work done”?
It’s neither and sometimes both and a lot in between. Being a writer is complicated, and we get those lucky moments away at a writing retreat or we find the perfect coffee shop for a morning, but so much of it is organizing our life and work schedule so we can be productive and yes, be healthy.
It seems every time I have a book launch, I learn new lessons and also the same old ones—I need boundaries around social media; my body can’t handle a lot of stress well; I put pressure on myself that’s unnecessary; if I don’t keep my pressures in check, I’ll make myself sick.
So if you’re like me, a highly motivated person who is still a human with a body and mind that has their own needs, I hope these ideas help you—and you don’t have to be a writer to apply them! A lot of people are working flexible jobs that require us to build the days we need.
So here are four things that help me:
I work in chunks of time, cycling between work and rest.
I give my mind breaks, leaning into embodiment.
I eat snacks and lots of them.
I practice deep breaths.
Let’s break down each of these:
Working in cycles and chunks of time: I start my morning with rest, and I end it that way. Before I jump into work, even though my mind is racing with ideas, I take note of those and settle into a morning rhythm of journaling and reading while I have coffee for about an hour after the kids are off to school. Then I get to work, knowing that after that chunk of time, my body will need a break. After working on whatever project is designated for that day, I stop for lunch/exercise/rest. Then, I cycle back into work for the other stuff like emails and social media planning. Once late afternoon hits, I’m pretty much done for the day. It’s worked for me, and keeps my body’s rhythms balanced, following a flow instead of checking boxes and making the day only about the linear.
Lean into embodiment: When I take “breaks” from work it’s easy for me to still be ruminating on work, which really doesn’t help me much. As someone who’s excitement about my writing can quickly turn to stress and anxiety in my body, I have to protect embodiment and learn to work toward it in my everyday life—believe me, it makes my writing so much better when I do. So when I take breaks throughout the day, I do things that get me out of my head, like a Peloton ride, a climbing session at the gym, a walk around the neighborhood, working in my garden, playing fetch with my dogs, or working a puzzle. Getting out of my head and into my body teaches me that my work is directly tied to my care.
Snacks, snacks, snacks: In recent years I’ve been learning a lot more about my body’s struggles with food, and being a woman with a hormonal imbalance and some other chronic issues has caused my body a lot of stress over the years. When I became a full-time writer and public speaker, I realized that I needed to be more intentional about the food I was eating throughout the day. I’m still figuring this out, because things like meal planning and how to eat while traveling take a lot of time and effort, but what I have realized is that I need a lot of healthy snacks throughout the day to stay focused. I eat breakfast around 7 every morning, and by 10 or 10:30, I need a substantial snack to hold me over until lunch. Then around 2, I usually need to eat again. My favorite snacks lately are peanut butter granola bars, a small bowl of berries and goldfish crackers, Dole’s protein smoothie blend paired with a hard-boiled egg, or chips and salsa/black bean dip. The snacks are more important than we realize.
I practice deep breathing: Whether it’s the 4-7-8 breaths or simply stopping to remind myself that I need to breathe deeply, this has been a really big deal for me. For those of us with anxiety (but also, like, everyone), when we spend a long amount of time not breathing properly, it literally begins to affect our bodies. It can cause lightheadedness, chest pain, jitters, among other problems. I even learned a few years ago about something called SCREEN APNEA, which basically means while we are on screens for an extended amount of time we aren’t breathing properly. WHAT!? So please, take care of yourselves. Set reminders to breathe, practice meditation, go on mindfulness walks. It’s all connected to our care and our work, and if you’ve read my book Living Resistance, you know that I take seriously all the ways our bodies are connected to the resistance we practice in the world. Our daily care matters.
It’s nearly Autumn, which is a new season, a fresh start, a space to ask what’s working and what’s not working. I hope that you find ways to embed care into your day, through things like breathing, embodiment, cycling in and out of work, and taking care of yourself through the food you eat.
We live in a society that doesn’t value our care, and honestly, doesn’t want it. We resist that by fighting for our care, by scheduling it in, by dedicating ourselves to it. That’s one of the best gifts we can give to ourselves, to our words, and to our audiences.
Onward.
News!
Come see me in Indiana this month! I’m so excited to announce that I’ll be speaking at the University of Notre Dame’s bookstore this month with a reading of Living Resistance followed by a book signing. I’ve wanted to visit Notre Dame’s campus for a while now, and holding a celebration of my book on Potawatomi land is such a gift. Please come see us on the 27th!
After the event, I’ll be over at the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary speaking at their Rooted & Grounded conference on hope in the midst of climate doom. Click here to register.
Winter’s Gifts comes out in just over a month!
I wrote a children’s book partially for Little Kaitlin, who had such a mystical and magical connection to Mother Earth before it was slowly taken away.
So as an adult, I’m repairing my relationship with nature, and my book WINTER’S GIFTS is about a little Potawatomi girl named Dani who is exploring her connection with Mother Earth through songs, dreams, and a celebration of the coming cold.
I hope you’ll buy this book, not just for the kids in your life, but for Little You, and I hope it takes you on a healing journey like it did for me when I wrote it. Click here to pre-order it for yourself or a friend!
Lastly, if you’d like to join our Autumn poetry prompt week starting on Monday, you’ve got a few more days! This is a poetry series for paid subscribers to celebrate the coming of Autumn. Each day next week I’ll send out a quote and a question followed by an original poem, and I encourage you to write your own, draw your reflections, or find another creative way to engage the changing seasons.
Thank you Kaitlin! I preordered the book so I can read it to my grandchildren.
This was soooo helpful to me. Thank you! 🤎 Also, I’m looking forward to the autumn poetry prompts so much!