#335: Writing Well: One Tool to Help You Avoid Procrastination So You Can Write Your Book

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelli Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters foreign.

Welcome to this writing well episode. My name is Shelly Hitz and I am going to talk today about one tool you can use to help you avoid procrastination so you can write your book. I have heard over and over and over from many of you that this is an issue for you. Now we have a free Facebook group currently called the Kingdom Writers Community and you can join us for free@training authors.com forward/group. It will redirect you to the Facebook group and when you join, you are able to share one thing that you're really struggling with, a question that you have. And Bill, when he was filling it out, he just wrote procrastination. I get you, Bill. I understand. I feel you. And then Madeline said, finding the will to write the book has been a struggle for me. It really is something I either have a huge drive for or something that takes everything in me to force myself to sit down and do it. I feel you too, Maidlin. I've been there as well. And. And then Melina says writing is not a natural gift. So just disciplining myself to sit still and write is difficult. And. And none of you are alone. I mean, this is something that we all face at one time or another. It's like Madeline said, you know, you can sometimes have a huge drive for it and then other times have to force yourself to sit down. And so last month I talked about seven practical things about just setting a writing time in place and being consistent in your writing. But this month I wanted to talk about one tool you can use. And there are many strategies, many tools you can use. But how do you simply get started? How do you simply get yourself to just sit down and start writing? Well, the one thing that I have seen help writers over the years more than anything else is something very simple. It's not the latest software or whiz bang thing, you know, it's not. It's not anything complicated. It is simple. Simply using a timer. Yes, a timer. You know, for me personally, anytime I dread a task or I just. I know I need to do something, but it just feels overwhelming or whatever, I have this little timer right next to me. I'm looking at it right now and it's. It's kind of a fancy one from Amazon. I just, I kind of just liked having something a little bit different. But I can just flip it and it will automatically start a timer for me. 30 minutes or 15 minutes or 60 minutes or however long. And there is something, my friends, about setting a timer and telling your brain, all right, it's time to go. It's almost like when you're at a race and they, you know, they. The gun goes off and they're like, all right, it's time to start. And everyone starts going. And. And so the way that writers use this, and you may have even done this, but yourself is the pomodoro technique. Research shows that typically the best amount of time to do is 25 minutes of focus work and then take a five minute break. You can also do 50 minutes of focus work and take a 10 minute break. And inside our membership Christian Book Academy, every month we have a two day virtual writing retreat. I've been running these and hosting these for years. And what we found has worked best for the majority of writers that we work with is 50 minutes. Because what happens is you get into a flow, you start, you know, you turn off all other notifications, you're telling your brain you're gonna focus on this one thing, writing, and you're gonna do it for this amount of time. But even if you just. No matter what amount of time you set your timer for you, you're giving your brain a deadline. You know how you get so much done the day before you go on vacation? Like, I used to work as a physical therapist, and the day before I would go on a vacation, I had to get all the things ready for the person that would be covering for me. And, and oh my goodness, I would be so productive because there was a deadline. I had to. Right. Um, that's the thing. That's, that's the concept. We're using this concept of setting a deadline. And then when you use a timer, I recommend using a timer, you know, something you can see if possible, but maybe that won't help you. But that visual for me, I can look over and say, oh, you know, it's only been five minutes. All right, let's keep going, you know, because my brain will be like, oh, why don't you go check this? Why don't you go do this? Why? You know, and it's like, then I look over, I'm like, okay, it's only been five minutes. Keep going, Shelly. And what we do is we use the pomodoro technique at our Monthly virtual writing retreats. But you can do this on your own as well. And we have a timer set for 50 minutes and then you take a 10 minute break. This also gets your body a break. You know, I just had a Christian Book Academy member this week mention that she's starting to get arm and shoulder pain from writing so much because she does so much work for, you know, writing and stuff for her work as well as her own writing. But I've had issues with that too. And the Pomodoro technique actually will help you to not have as many injuries because you're taking breaks, stand up, stretch, drink a thing of water. That helps your body physically as well, it helps your brain. And then get back to work if you have other time. But we also in Christian Book Academy, every month we have a 15 minute writing challenge. And so how this works is we just encourage our members to write for at least 15 minutes a day. If you want to write more, that's fine. So again, using this tool, the simple timer, you can use your kitchen timer, you can use, you know, you can buy a fancier one if you want on Amazon, but it's not necessary. You can use a timer on your phone. You can even just Google it, Google Online timer. And there's plenty of timers you can pull up on your computer or your iPad. There's apps for this. You know, there's even Pomodoro apps. It doesn't matter. Just use a timer.

And for the 15 minute challenge, like what if you just set your timer for 15 minutes? So Bill, Procrastination, you said. And Madeline, you know, just sometimes it takes everything to force yourself to sit down and do it. And Melina said, you know, just to sit still and write is difficult. You know, get your timer out, set it for just 15 minutes and just tell your brain, we're just gonna write for 15 minutes, that's it. And then sit down and just see where it goes. And look at some of my tips from last month as well on, you know, just helping yourself create that writing routine. Those things definitely help make it more enjoyable. But what if you use this simple tool of a timer, set it for 15 minutes, that's it. And just tell your brain, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to write. We've seen it over and over and over again with our clients and our members and Christian Book Academy and all of the different things that I've done over the years. It works. You know, you set that timer for 15 minutes and you get some things done. And so what if you did? What if you did this? What if you tried it many times? You'll write much longer than 15 minutes. So in our free PDF download the writing Wheel, we have even more explanation on the Pomodoro technique for you. So if you go to trainingauthors.com writingwheel you'll be able to download that for free. But you know, if you're having issues with just knowing like I don't even know what topic to choose or outlining my book, then that's where our workshop.

Book Writing Lab can really help you. If you go to bookwritinglab.com workshops just $27. I mean, again, I've used it with hundreds if not thousands of writers to help them choose a topic, outline your book and really set a plan of how to get that book finished so you can check out those resources. We are here for you, cheering you on, but do it. I would love for you right now to schedule a time when you will set up a timer for 15 minutes at least. @ the very minimum, sit down and just write for 15 minutes and then come back to our Facebook group. Go to trainingauthors.comgroup that will redirect you to our Facebook group and report back. Let us know how it went. I would love to hear how your time of writing went. So thanks so much for being here this week friends and I will talk to you soon. Bye.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for.

Eternity. And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom.

Writers. Sam.