Feel Better/Write More: The Joys of Time Tracking for Writers

I can be a bit of a numbers nut. I keep stats for script submissions, writing income, and lots of other things. But one of the most important things I track is my time. I’ve been writing seriously for more than 25 years, and I have a busy life, with a house and kids and a spouse. I’m involved in many different groups and productions, which entails lots of meetings and rehearsals.  Which all impede on the one thing I need in order to write:

Time.

If I don’t actively make time for my writing, it doesn’t get done. But I’ve discovered that one of the most important habits for building discipline, and for not beating myself up too much when I feel like I don’t get enough writing done, is tracking my time.

Lots of writers feel constantly frustrated, because they don’t get as much written as they want to. But my first question to those writers is: how much time do you actually spend writing? Most of them don’t know. Which means, maybe they’re wasting time, or maybe they don’t have as much time to write as they think they do. The one thing I do know is that complaining won’t get that next script or novel written. Writers need to be realistic about what they actually should be accomplishing.

If you only spend 2 hours a week writing, that’s not nothing. That’s 100 hours a year. Which is enough to write some short stuff, or maybe a draft of a full-length play (or more).  But, remember it’s going to take you a year to get that written. And you’re not going to write two novels, or a whole bunch of new plays plus rewrites.

My goals this year is to spend 400 hours of ass-in-the chair writing time.  (I count journal writing, because that’s writing practice. More about that in another post.). That should be enough time to create the projects that are important to me. I will probably spend another 800-1,000 hours on other parts of my writing life.  I also track time spent reading for work (not recreational reading and not project research), meeting/rehearsal/teaching time, marketing/admin time, and time I spend on theater ecosystem/volunteer work (like the New England New Play Alliance).

I also track my various side jobs/projects, which are sometimes farming or fixing up my old house.  It helps me to know how much balance I’ve got in my life.

Isn’t it a pain in the ass to do so much tracking?  The answer is a definite No. I use a simple excel spreadsheet that I open it at the start of every work day, and I close it at the end of the day. Whenever I move on to a major new task, I just open the window, and enter my starting time and expected end time.  When I finish that task, I update the end time.

 (I really do more than just write in my journal.)

There are a few reasons why this habit is especially effective:

• It makes me focus on one task for a certain block of time. Shifting back and forth between projects, minute-to-minute is not a productive way to work.
• By entering the end point when I start, it creates a sense of self accountability—the mere process of writing down that I’m going to work for one hour on my play puts me on the hook. I’ve made a commitment to sit at the desk and work on that manuscript. Going back and having to enter a lesser number is demoralizing, so I’d rather just do the work. I find that if I’m modest about my initial goal, I will often work past my expected end-time—so if I pledge to write for one hour, once I get going I can’t stop, and suddenly it’s two hours.  
• I can see whether I'm really doing my job.
• It allows me to set specific goals, that are useful whether I'm outlining, drafting, or revising. Many writers set productivity goals around pages or words per day, which works great for writing first drafts. But what about early stages, when you just need to think and outline and node? What about revisions? Tracking time is a more universal measure of your writing efforts.

Some of you might say this is too much trouble. I can only suggest that you give it a chance and try to make it a habit.

Others might say that having a time sheet feels too much like I’m doing a “job” and that's icky.  The tricky thing about working for yourself as an artist is that you have no one to answer to.  The external rewards for the work are often very far off, if they come at all. No one is there to make you do this, and no one really wants to hear you complain. You have to be your own boss/producer/editor/publisher/taskmaster.

The other advantage of tracking is that you start to get a sense of how long it actually takes you do stuff. And how long you are capable of working on a given project at a time. My wife will tell you that I am notoriously bad at estimating how long it will take me to do a household project—say replacing a light fixture. Should be simple—half an hour! Two hours later, I’m just finishing up.

That’s okay when you’re puttering around the house. But what about if someone wants to commission you to write a play? Do you have enough time to complete the commission?  How much should you charge?  You need to know how long it takes you to write something.

And you also need to have a sense for how long you can write at a time. Is two hours your upper limit?  I find that 3-4 hours of solid writing time is pretty tiring, so I plan for creative work in the mornings, and then admin/marketing after lunch. If you work a day job or have small kids, you shouldn't arrange your schedule to give you one 8-hour block of writing time every week or month, when you can't write for longer than 3 hours.

I hope some of you will give this a try, and let me know if it works. Also, if you'd like a blank writing timesheet, I'm happy to e-mail you a blank copy of my excel template.

Just for kicks, I’m going to see how many hours I spent on various writing projects (I’ve been tracking writing time since 2010.  (I have a series of annual blog posts where I write about the numbers.)   

Here's how my overall time has been spent over the past few years:

2016: 1,223 hours (416 writing/28 reading/438 rehearsing/274admin/67 New Play Alliance+873 home renovation
2015:  1,035 hours (262 writing/52 reading/295 rehearsing/303 admin/123 New Play Alliance) + 561 on moving and house renovations
2014:  1,426 hours (452 writing/109 reading/342 rehearsing/396 marketing/127 New Play Alliance) + 130 hours farming.
 2013:  996 hours (394 writing/308 rehearsing/294 marketing)  + 902 hours farming
2012:  896 hours.  (386 writing/278 rehearsing and meeting/231 marketing)   + 734 hours farming
2011: 818 hours.  (I didn't break out rehearsals from desk writing time in 2011).

I just put together a big spreadsheet of hours for each of my projects over the past 7 years.

(Click here to see the PDF.)

Here are numbers for a few specific projects:

Full-length Plays:  (this is writing time only, not rehearsal time in workshop/rehearsal)

Chore Monkeys:    95 hours

Blood on the Snow: 145

Distant Neighbors: 151

Drift:  77 hours 

Fire on Earth: 150  (it was more, but my data stops at 2010)

Flight:  180  (this includes workshop time)

Lost in Lexicon: 96

None but the Best: 134

Short plays generally take me 3-7 hours to write.

Novels:

Steering to Freedom:  680 hours

Moving:  91 (revisions only)

The Secret of Spirit Lake:  125 (revisions only)

Keep in mind, this is time at the desk time, not the additional noodling and walking around the neighborhood time that goes into a project. Short plays look like they don't take very long to write, but I'll often think about them for many hours before I sit down and actually write them.

Thoughts after compiling all this info:

• It reminded me that I work on a LOT of projects. At least 38 projects over the past 7 years, of all lengths.
• I made a grid of all projects, over the years. It's interesting how many years it takes to craft a full-length play. Typically, I put time into them over a 3-4 year span.
• History and research intensive projects take a long time. Steering to Freedom is a Civil War novel, and at 680 hours, it took about 2 solid years worth of my writing time. (I worked on it over a span of more than 6 years).
• Keep in mind that even if a full-length play takes a 150 hours, I'm lucky to get 15 hours per week on a single project. So that's 10 weeks worth of work. And I am typically working on 2-3 projects at once. Which is why it sometimes feels like it takes a long time to finish a piece.

Let me know if you try any of these tracking techniques. Or if you do, what kind of numbers you find. How long does it take you to write play?  A novel?