I’ve found that the more I “batch” my writing, the more focused I become. The more focused I get, the better I write. However, I find that after a point, my writing begins to diminish as I get tired and my focus starts to diminish. Three hours seems to be about optimum.

I used to write for 20 minutes a day, in the morning. While I still do this at times, I sometimes notice that I’m just starting to get into the groove after 20 minutes. There is a period of ups and downs, and it’s usually after about 30 minutes that I really get into the zone and start cranking out the words.

The basic problem that there is to overcome, regardless of the length of time, is simple. The more I’m thinking about other things, the less focused I am on my writing. Writing amid other activity is useless. If there’s one area of life where I distinctly force myself to NOT multi-task, it’s in this area. Creativity and multitasking generally don’t go well together (at least not the way most of us multi-task).

What I find to be the overall most effective approach: deal with everything else that needs immediate attention first, or schedule a time when I’ll get it dealt with. That way, I can stop thinking about it. Once I get to this point with everything in my life, my space is clear to write. So, if I know I’m going to be writing for about 3 hours, I make sure to deal with everything that can’t wait at least three hours, and make a plan to deal with everything that can’t wait a full week. Then, for the next 3-hour period, it’s easy to rid myself of distractions. Generally, this is when I produce my highest quality writing.

I’m now in the process of building up my schedule where I do everything in 3-hour increments. I’m starting to see that once I’m doing this consistently, everything in my life will work.