Letting go of self-imposed time limits
As a college student, I know all too well the dread of rushing to finish a piece of work as a deadline rapidly approaches. When it comes to creative writing, I don’t have any strict deadlines forced upon me by anyone else. Rather, I am often guilty of creating deadlines for myself and then getting disappointed when I fail to meet them. I’ve realized over the years this doesn’t help my productivity in the way I intend.
If you want to write more efficiently, I recommend that you let go of all the pressures and expectations, either from others, or more likely — yourself. Whenever I start a new writing project, my first instinct is to give myself a deadline for a certain word count or to finish the project. While it’s great to begin a new project thinking I can achieve this goal, it’s just not realistic.
I’ve learned that I need to give myself general, reachable goals to keep me on track and then I need to give myself checkpoints.
This year, I’ve put this into practice through a monthly writing check-in. At the beginning of each month, I give myself goals I want to work toward. At the end of the month, I do an evaluation of the progress I’ve made and write out the goals for the next month.
This process works better for me compared to telling myself that I’ll finish writing a draft or I’ll have a polished copy of a piece done by a specific time. It also lets me see which goals are achievable in a certain time frame.
Obviously, this only works if you don’t have to meet a deadline put on you by external forces, such as school or a job. The only person impatiently stomping their foot and waiting for me to write is myself, which is why I can get away with throwing all my expectations out the window. If you’re able to, forget about the self-imposed deadlines. Give yourself time to really work on a piece, even if it takes longer and is more work than you expected going into it. By the end of it, you’ll know you took your time and can be proud of all the work you put into writing!