On May 2, 2026, Kasie and Rex took on Writing with a Busy Life. Here are the show notes:

Topic: Writing with a busy life

Agenda:

• Quick catch up
• Is it finding time to write?
• Or making time to write?
• How to do it

Segment 1

When life gets really busy, we sometimes sacrifice the things that are most important to our wellbeing: exercise, sleep, food, even writing. I find that my writing time is the first thing I slash when I have other demands. As the semester is finishing up, I know I’ll have a lot more time over the summer. I want to establish a writing schedule, a habit, that I can maintain even after the school year starts back up.

But how?

Let’s start with the first question: Is this a time issue? Should I be looking at my calendar and finding the consistent day or time that is available to write?

Is this a volume issue? Should I be thinking about how much I want to write (i.e. an entire book) and then allocating the time I’ll need to generate the words? Feels very NaNoWriMo, which was a good study in discipline.

Is this a priority issue? Should I be protecting my writing time as if it’s non-negotiable. Do not accept meetings, appointments, or other interruptions? Holding myself accountable to the day and time as if I were the most important client on my roster.

Our frequent resource Joanna Penn has this episode where she talks about making time to write. We know to write you have to write. Talking about it, thinking about it, isn’t enough. And writing takes time. And there’s a finite amount of time, for all of us. So how do you allocate that time?

Here are some prompts from Joanna’s show:

• How to find the time to write — schedule your writing time
• Track how you spend your time
• How much do you really want this?
• Where can you carve out time?
• No one said this would be easy
• Make the most of your writing time — find the right location
• Get into the right mindset — quickly
• Turn off distractions
• Use timed writing
• Stop procrastinating
• Measure your progress

Segment 2

Let’s talk about some tactics that people claim are good ways to seize writing time: 

• The Pomodoro Method
• Writing on your phone (or anywhere) with cloud-based apps
• Voice-to-text to record your thoughts and ideas
• Carry a notebook
• Handwrite in public spaces – coffee shops, airports
• Carry a book with you everywhere to read at stoplights, waiting in line, etc.
• Write what you see (or hear)
• Set small timers (two, three, four-minute drills) to get used to writing in small bursts

How much preparation do you need to write? Is it easier to have a set outline of what you need to write in each session so you sit down and just fill in the scene? Or is it better to have some time for pre-writing or brainstorming?

Some pre-writing techniques:

• Clustering (mind mapping)
• Listing
• Questioning
• Freewriting
• WWWWWH – journalist questions
• Outlining

Segment 3

When we were in school, teachers would say, “Just write! Don’t worry about editing!” and I could never follow that instruction. I was always looping back to the poor sentence I’d just constructed and writing it again. And writing on software is even worse because I’m reading what I wrote as soon and I write it and wanting to make sure it makes sense.

How often, when writing, do you stop and review your work?

We know real revision is later, after you’ve walked away and gotten some distance and come back with fresh eyes. But are you guilty of micro-editing? Or micro-revising?

If time is limited, should you carve up the writing and editing time and be strict about what you’re going to do when?

What about deadlines? Do they impact your choice of writing or revising? Do they work for you or against you in terms of prioritizing the tasks?

This article gets right to the basics that we all know and don’t follow:

• Protect your writing time (once scheduled, don’t let anything eat it up)
• Create writing goals (word count, time, chapters, etc)
• Find accountability partners (like our bi-weekly writing group)

Segment 4

Most of this has been “how to do it” so let’s talk about the success you can imagine. What do you want to accomplish this month? This summer?

Let’s set some goals and then check in with each other to see if those goals are being met.