Why great writing starts with tempering your expectations

To be able to write, and to improve your life, you must learn to manage your expectations. It’s that simple. Why? Because managing your expectations will make you happier.

Happiness expert Shawn Achor makes this case convincingly in his bestselling book The Happiness Advantage. (And if you don’t have time to read his book, take 12 minutes to watch his exceptionally funny TED talk on the subject.)

Managing your expectations better will allow you to become happier. And that, in turn, will improve both your writing and your life. Here’s how to make that magic happen:

Start by blocking your time, every day.

I had heard advice about time blocking for more than a decade and always discounted it, figuring that my crazy schedule — filled with meetings and phone calls — would never allow me to be so organized. Silly me. Time blocking works like a charm.

First thing each morning, I schedule my day, 6 a.m. to 6 pm, in Pomodoros — 25-minute units of working time, divided by five-minute breaks. (No, I don’t work a 12-hour day. Some of my time is scheduled for meals, personal email, exercise and other non-work tasks.)

What makes time blocking so effective? First, if I’ve bitten off more than I’m going to be able to chew, I’ll understand that fact early in the morning. This gives me the chance to decide what I am going to do and what I’m going to postpone. As a result, I’ve never worked in the evening ever since I started my time-blocked schedule several years ago. (Before that, I had to work in the evening all the time.)

Second, the five-minute break between tasks allows me some important wiggle room. If I’m a few minutes late starting, I still have time to do my 25 minutes of work without having to rewrite the entire schedule.

Third, I schedule several 25-minute blocks each day to accomplish the myriad small tasks that could otherwise eat up my time. I don’t list all the tasks on my schedule — that would take way too long. Instead, the chunk of time is a generic one, aimed at knocking off as many small tasks as possible.

Fourth, time blocking allows me to be hyper-aware of my most productive times. This type of tracking made me realize the importance of doing as much writing in the morning as possible, while also scheduling any tasks I’m inclined to procrastinate about for before 12 noon.

Five, time blocking gives me a sense of (manageable) urgency that makes me far more productive every day.

Look at trendlines rather than one particular day.

We all have days where everything goes wrong. A broken dishwasher. A car accident. A COVID test (even if it’s negative). It’s not possible to be a top performer every day of the week. Our lives are an entire series of events, and we cannot understand everything that’s important to us by looking at just one of those events.

Considering the forest rather than the individual trees will help you add more nuance to your understanding of how you’re doing with your writing — and with everything else. This is not about making excuses; it’s about understanding reality. And once you have that understanding, you can often make positive changes.

For example, I usually suggest that writers spend at least five minutes writing first thing every morning? Why? Because it’s easier to protect that early morning time. And it will give you a strong feeling of accomplishment early in the day. That said, you may be able to come up with your own even more creative solutions for protecting your writing time.

Don’t hold yourself to unreasonable standards.

Writing — or doing anything else — is not about using superhuman willpower or having ironclad discipline. What you want to do is create a sustainable habit that will support you.

Don’t use “should” language with yourself — i.e. I should be writing/editing this faster; I should be able to do this better; I should finish this dissertation/book by November. Instead, accept what you can do, and just try to do it a little bit better every day.

And forgive yourself when things go wrong, because they inevitably will. That’s just part of life.

Understand that change requires time and effort.

You will improve over time. That fact is inevitable if you have enough practice. Focus on getting the practice.

But if you want to supercharge your improvement efforts, here’s another trick I’ve been using for the last several years, and it’s had an enormous payback for me. At the end of each working day, I review my time-blocked day and note how I did on every task I’d planned. Then I take two minutes to write down the major lesson I learned about my writing/working habits that day. I save this list and review it every week. I review it again every month. And I review it again every year.

That repetition is invaluable, especially if you’re stubborn and thick-headed like me!

Connect with Daphne Gray-Grant on LinkedIn, and learn more at Publication Coach.