School holidays. Endless summer fun when you’re the kid; weeks of tricky and expensive childcare wrangling when you’re the parent. I find that my writing time shrinks considerably during the school holidays. What are your tactics for keeping productivity up when the kids aren’t at school?
Besides sending them off to camp (both day and sleepaway)? I shift my writing to the evening after they go to bed.
Can't justify sneaking off to the coffee shop and writing for an hour in the morning when the kids are home. The other possibility is getting up at 6 AM and writing before they wake up, but that has never worked for me.
I do wish I was the sort of person that could get up reliably at 5 or 6am and get writing in before everyone else in the house wakes up. That would be extremely useful! I do most of my writing at night as it is, though I'm also fortunate to normally not work on Mondays - that's where the holidays tend to up-end the schedule. :)
Of course, I get more time to spend with my son, which is hardly a hardship. But the squeeze on the writing time I really feel.
I literally get up at 5.30 am to write, before everyone else gets up. It is difficult but I find after a few days of doing it I naturally wake up at that time. Fresher and more energy first thing as opposed to last thing at night. The only loss is mindless TV time in the evening, before bed--I just go to bed earlier. Still get to catch up with my wife before that--so no big deal sacrifices.
Fair. It is easier in the Summer. Although I actually didn't manage to do this the last two mornings because of exhaustion--4yo was up at 3am last night which set me back a bit!
Throw them out the door in the morning and tell them not to come back until the street lights come on.
Does the job!
Besides sending them off to camp (both day and sleepaway)? I shift my writing to the evening after they go to bed.
Can't justify sneaking off to the coffee shop and writing for an hour in the morning when the kids are home. The other possibility is getting up at 6 AM and writing before they wake up, but that has never worked for me.
I do wish I was the sort of person that could get up reliably at 5 or 6am and get writing in before everyone else in the house wakes up. That would be extremely useful! I do most of my writing at night as it is, though I'm also fortunate to normally not work on Mondays - that's where the holidays tend to up-end the schedule. :)
Of course, I get more time to spend with my son, which is hardly a hardship. But the squeeze on the writing time I really feel.
I literally get up at 5.30 am to write, before everyone else gets up. It is difficult but I find after a few days of doing it I naturally wake up at that time. Fresher and more energy first thing as opposed to last thing at night. The only loss is mindless TV time in the evening, before bed--I just go to bed earlier. Still get to catch up with my wife before that--so no big deal sacrifices.
I'm envious! I can see this working for me in the summer, potentially, but in the winter when it's dark until 8am it'd be much more of a challenge.
Fair. It is easier in the Summer. Although I actually didn't manage to do this the last two mornings because of exhaustion--4yo was up at 3am last night which set me back a bit!