Small Changes, Big Results
How your can turn 10 minutes a day into writing success
Several years ago, I was doing some clinical training when I was completing my master’s degree in counseling psychology. My supervisor was a therapist who had begun his career as a naval officer.
He had a world map on the wall of his office. One day, he walked over to the map, which had a plastic coating, and pointed to a spot on the map.
“This is New York City. If you go due east, you will end up here.” He said, and used a ruler to draw a straight line to some point in the British Isles.
“Now, let’s shift this just one degree south.” He took out a protractor and made a one-degree change. The line ended up in Northern Africa. “Small changes maintained over a sufficient period of time make a huge difference,” he concluded.
That little illustration has stuck with me for many years. Too often we think we have to make huge changes take “massive action” in order to make a difference. Sometimes that’s needed, but most of the time, trying to do too much all at once leads to overload and discouragement.
Tell someone who has been sedate for many years to begin by doing heavy aerobic workouts for an hour a day and they will feel overwhelmed. Even if they try, they will likely drop out in the first week. However, if you start off with just 10 minutes a day, they will likely continue.
I worked with a writer’s accountability group once. We formed the ten-minute-a-day club. We committed to writing just 10 minutes a day every week day. That’s not much. A station break is five minutes. Write during two station breaks, and you have your ten minutes.
It didn’t seem like much at first, but it added up. Most of us could write 200 words in ten minutes. So, in a week that was 1000 words. That’s a short article, a blog post, or a piece of flash fiction. In a month, that’s 4400 words. That’s a short story, a long article, half of a short nonfiction eBook, one or two chapters in a novel. In a year, that’s 52,000 words or a short novel, two or three novellas or short nonfiction eBooks, ten to twelve short stories, a book or two of poetry, a couple of screenplays. All from 10 minutes a day.
Yes, it is hard to find the time to write. This is especially true if you are juggling family, a day job, community responsibilities and all the other things that seem to suck up the time. But you don’t have to carve out an hour or two a day. Just make one small change. It could be 10 minutes a day. It might mean a “writing hour” every Saturday. It could be brown bagging it at work and writing during your lunch hour. The important thing is to make one small change and be consistent with it.
Small changes bring big results.
If you are struggling to find the time to write, check out “The No-Excuse Zone: Reality-Based Planning for Writers.” Discover ways to build goals and action plans that work based on your unique lifestyle. Click Here for more information.