A few Tuesdays back, I wrote about how the Alarmed iPhone app has revolutionized the way I do household chores, schedule blog posts, and do a whole bunch of other things. In short, it’s made me much more organized and on-time doing things. Now I have entire days set aside for things like cleaning the kitchen, tackling cluttered areas of the house, posting all the blogs for the upcoming week, etc.

But I did not mention that this app has also revolutionized the way I write…because I simply did not think of it as a “writing app” until about two weeks ago.

How did a reminder app change my writing habits? Simple: I set aside a “Writing Day” reminder, just like I set aside a “Kitchen Day,” a “Clutter Day,” etc.

This screenshot from my phone shows how Writing Day falls on Sunday every week, sandwiched in between mundane, tiny little tasks. Sunday afternoons are the times I can finally wind down for the week and recharge for the next–it’s a time of reflection, and more importantly, a time of just being able to BREATHE. No one needs my time, no one really needs me to do anything–everything for the week is done, and my time is my own. In short, it’s the PERFECT time to write. I’ve left myself a simple instruction, too–“You know what to do.” Because I do know what to do on Writing Day–just write. I can write in my novel, I can write in a fanfic or two, I can write anything I want as long as it’s creative. That’s the only rule.

Has This Helped? YES!

This app has already helped me move ahead three pages in my novel. Though it might seem paltry, three pages is a victory, since I’ve been stuck in one place for nearly a year.

Before making a specific “writing day” reminder, I had had a hard time making time to write. It seemed I wrote all the time, either doing blog posts like these, preparing my Sunday school lessons to teach on Sunday, or writing website content…but I hadn’t really done much creative work aside from just little random bits here or there. I ended up almost burned out on writing, just not feeling like I had the energy to write anything when I had free time.

When I finally set aside a special “day” to write, boy, did that change. I’ve begun to write more on my novel, and I’ve started looking forward to Sunday afternoons as “my time,” even. Just allotting a special day of the week to writing makes me feel less anxious about accomplishing my creative writing goals, and less anxiety = more productivity. This is a HUGE change for the better. I don’t force myself to produce a certain number of words or pages when I write this way–I just relax, get rid of all my anxiety about “getting things done,” and just enjoy the process.

Making a “Writing Day” for Yourself

• Choose a day of the week which is less busy than all the others, or which has mostly non-writing tasks. This is important–you don’t want to be mentally “burned out” on writing before you even begin.
• How much time do you have during that day? According to your schedule, budget in a block of time to write. It can be 15 minutes, one hour, 3 hours–whatever time you have free.
• Create a consistent reminder for yourself, either on your phone/computer as I did, or place a paper note somewhere where you will see it every day.
• When your chosen “writing day” comes around, just write SOMETHING creative. If it’s a few words, awesome. A few lines or a paragraph? Great! A whole page, or even a bunch of pages? Amazing! Count it all as progress, because it is.

I hope this helps you get back on track with your own creative writing–it certainly has helped me!