How to create consistent writing habits
By Steph Caswell
If you struggle with creating consistent writing habits, you’ll no doubt feel frustrated with your book’s progress. After all, you have the ideas and the expertise, yet you just can’t get the blooming thing written. Publication day now seems like a distant dream.
I hear you.
You’re not alone. Every writer who’s ever put pen to paper or fingertips to keyboard has been where you are now – procrastinating and struggling, not only to find the time to write but with motivation too.
But before you throw in the proverbial towel, let me reassure you the real problem isn’t you; it’s simply how you approach the writing process. And luckily for you, there’s a solution.
Consistent writing habits – it comes down to systems
Bestselling author of Atomic Habits James Clear states that you don’t “rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems”.
And he’s right. You could be the best writer the world has ever seen, yet it’s moot if you don’t sit your butt in the chair and write. You could have ambitions to be a Sunday Times bestseller, but without creating consistent writing habits, your book will forever remain in your head… or in a rarely opened file on your computer.
If you’re struggling to write your book, your habits and systems are the places to start. Take a good look at what’s working and what’s not. Are you helping yourself to write consistently or sabotaging your efforts, even subconsciously? Do you procrastinate when you’re supposed to be writing, suddenly having the urge to laminate the kitchen floor rather than face the blinking cursor?
Procrastination and habits are closely linked – author Mel Robbins goes as far as to say that procrastination itself is a habit. But that’s another blog post. However, if you don’t address how you approach your writing and develop systems that work, procrastination will forever be a travelling companion on your writing journey.
The secret to consistency and success
Over the past ten years, much research has been done into what makes habits stick. Yet it’s the work of BJ Fogg, a researcher and behaviour scientist at Stanford, that has helped me to write six books in seven years. Indeed it was Fogg who taught James Clear, who then went on to write Atomic Habits.
In his book, Tiny Habits, Fogg shares his theory for how habits and new behaviours are formed with a simple equation:
Behaviour = Motivation x Ability x Prompt
B = MAP
But what is most interesting in Fogg’s research is that you should rely on motivation least when attempting to build new habits. Instead, you should focus on ability and prompts to build those consistent writing habits.
So what does that look like in reality? Again, it comes down to systems.
Ability
Make your new writing habit easy. One of the reasons we fail to write consistently is the magnitude of the task ahead. You think about writing a book, and you’d rather poke your eye out with a fork. Making the task manageable is what matters.
An example would be Fogg’s new exercise habit. He wanted to do push-ups each day, so instead of giving himself a target of 50 push-ups, which frankly never seems appealing, he decided to do two push-ups after each time he went to the loo. Just two.
What worked brilliantly here is that he made it super easy and also tagged it onto an existing habit – washing his hands after he went for a pee. He found that once he’d done two push-ups, he was sometimes inclined to do a few more. Other times he wasn’t, so he just stuck with two. The number of push-ups is almost irrelevant; it’s the consistency of the new habit that matters.
So taking inspiration from Fogg’s post-pee push-ups, you can apply the same principle to your writing. Instead of sitting down to write thousands of words over a few hours, do the opposite. Set yourself a ridiculously low word-count target for each session. Seriously low. We’re talking so low you’d be embarrassed to mention it to the dog.
Make your target 50 words or even 20. Whatever works for you. Doing so makes your ability to do the new habit far more achievable, and thus you’re more likely to do it.
The likelihood is that you’ll write way more than that. And if you don’t? If you only hit 20 words? Well, you’ve achieved your word count target for the day and embedded new neural pathways associated with your writing habit in your brain. Winning.
Prompt
When we start any new habit, we’re full of enthusiasm – and that goes for writing habits too. We're keen beans for the first few weeks, sticking to our schedule and writing every day. But once the initial novelty wears off and willpower has left the building, we often fall off the habit wagon.
To help you avoid this and maintain your consistent writing habits, use prompts to remind you to complete them. You can choose from visual, auditory or kinesthetic prompts, for example:
● leaving your laptop and writing notebook out in your writing space
● sitting in the same place to write each day or writing at the same time
● putting your tea in your ‘writing mug’
● setting an alarm on your phone for your scheduled writing time
It might seem crazy, but our brains need these reminders. Our environment plays a huge part in creating new habits, so don’t underestimate the power of munching on the same biscuits while you write – I’m looking at you, custard creams – or wearing the same jumper.
Writing is cognitively challenging, so we need to make the rest of the process as simple and as appealing as possible. Prompts can really help with this, so why not choose one and give it a go? It might take a few attempts before you find something that suits you, but it will be worth it, I promise.
And finally…
Little and often has always worked for me – when I’m in first draft mode, I write for 30 minutes a day with a word-count target of 500 words. I always write from 7 to 7.30 am at the kitchen table because that’s when I’m most creative, and it gets the hard thing done first –eating that frog, as Brian Tracy would say. Sometimes I write more and sometimes less, but as long as I sit my butt in the chair and write something, life is good.
I log my daily word count on a spreadsheet to see those numbers creeping up, which is incredible motivation. Because as the research shows, motivation often comes after you’ve completed the difficult thing rather than before.
Your writing habits are unique to you. Choose what feels right for your circumstances. All too often, we compare ourselves to others and berate ourselves for not writing all hours of the day.
But it doesn’t need to be that way. Be kind to yourself, keep things simple and before you know it, you’ll establish consistent habits and finally have your book in your hands.
About Steph
Steph Caswell is the author of six non-fiction books and a writing coach and developmental editor at Creating Happy Writers. She works with service-led business owners who want to write and publish books in their niche, aiming to take the overwhelm away and make the writing journey a happy one. In 2021, Steph published her most recent book, Dare to Write, to help new non-fiction authors confidently write and publish their first books. Steph is also a ghostwriter in the self-help niche and an aspiring middle-grade children’s author.
You can connect with Steph on Instagram @creatinghappywriters and LinkedIn, or check out her website here.