How Much Time You Should Spend Writing, When You Have a Day Job and Kids?
(How many words should a word write write, if a word write could write words?)
I am a writer.1 But, I am not a writer. Rather, I am a person who writes. I say this because I am attempting to disambiguate what I do from who I am. I think we should all do this, regardless of our professions.
For writers, this kind of self-identification is most troubling because the vast majority do not make a living from their craft. If I were to identify myself by my occupation, I should probably call myself an Information Technology Professional, before I should say, “I am a writer.”2 But let us assume that by saying, “I am a writer,” I am really just saying, “I am someone who writes.”
Now that this has been established, I will proceed to the question I have been struggling with lately: how much time should I spend writing, when it is not my day job, and I have kids to raise?
I’ve created a breakdown of the time I spend each week doing my top activities:
Table of time usage.
1 week = 168 hours.
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| task | hours used |
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| Day job | 40 hours |
| Parenting | 52 hours |
| Sleeping | 56 hours |
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| Total | 148 hours |
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Wow! I have only 20 hours per week to do all other things! Here is a list of things that I might want to do. I've crossed out the ones that I do not find appealing:
have a shower
watch TV3have a relationship with my wife
meet/talk with friends
studyread
write
exercise
garden
meditate, pray, or do other 'spiritual' practices to maintain my mental health4
do social media5
Before I continue, I would like to ask you to comment on the list above. I want to hear about how you spend your free time. Are there any items you'd add to this list? Any you’d remove?
As a writer with a day job and young children, how do I allocate those precious 20 hours per week without collapsing into a lump of overworked meat?
I could try the techniques described in the HBR article, Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time, and the requisite companion book, The Power of Full Engagement6. The book was written for a corporate audience, but is universally applicable. In fact, the authors started out by working with high-performance athletes, teaching them how to maximize their performance while avoiding burnout. The techniques are simple in theory. The HBR article says, “To recharge themselves, individuals need to recognize the costs of energy-depleting behaviors and then take responsibility for changing them, regardless of the circumstances they’re facing.” (emphasis mine). These recharging methods are: proper nutrition and eating habits, adequate sleep and exercise, cultivating good habits (like going out for a walk), and weeding out bad habits (like eating donuts while working through lunch).
One good habit is to have a hobby that generates a sense of personal fulfillment and renewal. This is where I can life-hack a little. I can look at my writing as a hobby, which, by allowing me to express myself, leaves me feeling re-energized and ready to engage the coming work day.7
Since the goal is to have enough energy to actually use those free 20 hours per week, I definitely need to be fully engaged in all aspects of my life. It seems that by taking proper care of myself, I can perform well at work, enjoy time with my family, write copious prose at home once the children are asleep, and then have these things nourish each-other in a positive feedback loop.
But, am I falling into a trap? Am I valuing myself by my work, so that I feel the need to squeeze those last unallocated 20 hours into something productive? In his recent TED Talk, psychologist Azim Shariff explains that we view people who work hard as more morally good than people who we perceive to work less hard.8 We view working hard as an intrinsic good, which can easily lead us astray. We can even begin to judge ourselves through this lens as readily as we judge others.
This is where my disambiguation between “I am a writer,” and “a person who writes” becomes relevant: I need to be aware of the mindset that equates me with my writing. I need to setup guardrails against it. When I start telling myself that I haven't done enough, I need to shut it down. It’s fair to say that everybody should listen to their inner dialogue and learn how to shut down the “I'm not doing enough” voice.
Back again to the 20 hours. I have asked myself these questions:
Do I create art as an expression of self, or to fill my time with productive pursuits that need to be monetized? I have decided that it is an expression first, and any income that it can generate is a welcome acknowledgement of my work, but not a requirement for it. I will not judge myself by sales numbers.
Do I work as much and as hard as possible? I have decided that I need to manage the emotional and energetic burden that I place on myself — avoiding burnout is critical. This means not working all 20 free hours each week.
Should I measure my output in the number of words written? I have decided that I'll focus on quality and personal satisfaction.
The overriding risk here is that I drop my guard and push myself toward burning out. Burnout causes the “I'm an imposter” and “I'm not doing enough” inner monologue to run wild. My primary goal, no matter how I structure my time, is to remain healthy and present for my family, and to not end up in a scenario where I am forced to take an extended leave from work.9
It's been said that our jobs are not our family. In the same way, my writing is not my family, and my writing is not me. I place value on both my job and my writing, but I'll keep them in their respective places, which is below my personal health and my family. I'll continue to always aim for excellent work, but I won't feel like a failure for not over-working.
Taking all of the above factors into account, I feel that 5-10 hours per week of writing is reasonable (for me). The remaining 10-15 hours will be entirely non-productive in the economic sense. I will positively loaf during that time, and I will do my best to enjoy it.
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I have self-published 4 novels. I am currently working on a new novel, to be serialized here on substack.
About fifteen years ago I had joined the Toronto Arts & Letters Club. The rules of the club required that I could not put “novelist” beside my name in the club address book, because I didn't make a full-time living as a novelist. There were no novelists as members, most of the members were well-retired from their jobs, and I was still expected to pay for fountain pop at the club bar. I think not, sir. It's an old gripe, and I've since moved on.
It’s not that I don’t want to watch TV, it’s that I know I need to de-prioritize it for my own health. As someone who has seen the series “XO, Kitty,” I know how easy it is to get sucked in, where you find yourself waiting with baited breath to discover who will be the next beautiful Korean person with a perfect skincare routine to fall in love with the American foreign student.
I do not consider substack to be social media.
“The Power of Full Engagement” By Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. Free Press, 2003. ISBN 9780743226752.
The book goes into more detail and provides more case studies compared to the HBR article. A good read if you want to understand the science and statistics behind the kind of sports performance work that the authors adapted for corporate workers.
The book has one annoying flaw: the vast majority of case studies tended to be about one or another “highly successful” executive who was careening toward burnout. More curious, the case study subjects tended to have a spouse who was available to take care of the children and free up a lot of time for workouts, walks, and so on. I am not a highly successful executive, and I am 99% sure that you are not either, statistically speaking. I also have a wife who is as busy as I am, and I do not expect her to spend more time raising our children than I do.
I have always been suspicious about the concept of engagement at work, because engagement can be a way to coerce employees into being more dedicated to their workplaces - a ruse to encourage ever-greater letting of sacrificial workplace blood from the peasants. To learn about the seedier side of engagement, see The Dark Side of High Employee Engagement.
This is a Western cultural phenomenon to be sure, but with apparently universal applicability across cultures.
Speaking of burnout, check out this article by scientist Kelly Korreck, where she details her experience with recovering from burnout. The experience impacted her so much that she started her own coaching and retreats business for women working in STEM.