That Daily Routines site is great. I liked the casual way the interviewer asks Simone de Beauvoir, “When do you see Sartre?”. And who would have thought W. H. Auden took speed?

Thought you might like this blog if you haven’t seen it already: http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/

tim rudder’s last blog post..Another

Carving out and protecting time for personal projects takes effort, I think, because we undervalue play as a society and over value work (and make a false distinction between the two). I have heard different people use different methods – sometime it is about a regular time, sometimes it’s about having a separate, not at home, space. Others who have home offices have a door policy: door closed = do not disturb, half-open = you can disturb, but I’m working, open = not doing anything crucial that can’t be disturbed.

Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way series is good for some tips on this. Also how to stop you doing it to yourself.

I especially take to heart the “create an oasis for 1) creativity and 2) time.” The letting no one interrupt is more daunting.

Sure I have my own distractions like Twitter (trying to tame the beast) and email; but how do you keep your own family at arms length. My husband and children are also creative so it might be less challenging for me because they understand and respect the focus and concentration needed.

Creative time and focus for client projects is handled very easily. It’s the creative time for my personal expression that is the challenge right now and something I wish to overcome in the near future.

This post has generated the largest amount of comments for a long time. Do you think we’re all procrastinating?

I know what you are talking about with the “large block of writing” since I find that working on computer programs is very similar. I find that I spend a good deal of time getting my head wrapped around where things are supposed to go before I can get traction with writing code.

I haven’t taken on any large writing projects yet, just smaller projects like my blogs and some children’s books, but I can imagine that a novel or screen play must be much harder to keep in focus. Maybe someday …

The getting into character thing is true of the PhD writing too I think. It’s about holding many threads in your head in one go and I think any large block of writing requires that kind of immersion. I always have to re-read quite a bit of my PhD when I have had a break from writing it for a week or so. Shorter articles are very different in that regard.

I’ve been using techniques from the NOW habit, where you use an unschedule and commit to 30 minute attention chunks which is working well. It helps you find your ‘voice’ or work mode rapidly. And then stay in that flow without time pressure; this is important if you have to load a more complicated writing style. When Cleese speaks about getting into character being more difficult for writing dialogue that definitely chimes – the more characters you are dealing with the more you need to load and carry them in your head so they can interact and you can put that down on paper… Whether thats a script or a novel, its very different to composing for PhD, copywriting or journalism.

Daphne – A not unreasonable question. I’m writing my PhD right now and should be presenting it at the end of June. I put the novel on hold whilst I did that because two large collections of words was just too much in one go. I’ll admit that the novel will never be finished once I’ve finished my PhD!