Five Professional Habits for Writers

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

Yesterday we spoke about goals and that you should begin to build a creative life where creativity is part of how you live. I also mentioned putting aside time to plan for writing because it’s easy to put your creative activities, like writing aside while you take care of everything else that is demanding your attention in your life. I stated that you should be consistent and have fun achieving your goals and encouraged you to find a way to make the goals visible or create a visual for them.

What I didn’t talk about are your professional habits.

Earlier this year, I read a couple of books on habits and how they are great for achieving goals. The first one was The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and the second was Mini Habits by Stephen Guise.

The Power of Habit was super interesting because it explained the psychology behind habits and why we do or don’t do things. Businesses, for example, manipulate us and our desires for their products because they understand our habits. They know that if you have a school-aged child, you will buy school products in the fall before they begin school. They will then target you with ads to get you to go to their store.

Mini Habits claims that it’s easier to change our habits if we start with little things. Your brain will rebel against going for a one hour jog every morning to lose weight. But if you create a mini-habit of getting up everyday at the same time, putting your running shoes on, and going outside to walk to the corner, it will accept that. You do this everyday until it becomes a habit. Get up, put your shoes on, walk to the corner. Get up, put your shoes on, walk to the corner. Again and again and again. Then one day, when it has become automatic, you walk two blocks. Then three. Then you run those three blocks. And so on. Pretty soon, it has become a habit.

Writing Habits

So, I asked myself if I have writing habits. And I do. And so do some of the most successful writers. You can read, for example what Stephen King has written about how he structures his day and what his writing habits are.

Some of the things writer state they do when asked about their habits are not so much habits in my opinion, but rituals. They sit in the same place, play the same…