You have been working consistently and started to get into your writing groove. Then, the unexpected happens to interrupt your routine: you or a family member gets sick, an urgent work issue arises that consumes much more of your time, or you hit a wall in your research.
Sometimes, expected events disrupt your writing regimen, like a holiday or some celebration. Regardless of whether you get off by an unexpected or expected circumstance, you find yourself days into a new week without having worked on that project that you were making progress on almost daily.
What do you do? Well, you have several options, but you must do one of them!
1. Forget about the lost days, decide to start working tomorrow and adjust all of your goals and deadlines.
2. Don't let another day go by without doing something, even if it's working for only 15 minutes before going to sleep tonight.
3. Double up the rest of the week. Whether you need to work late at night, get up early or work over the weekend, fully recover the time you lost before the beginning of the next week.
Writing momentum is recaptured by mentally re-engaging first. Then, you formulate a plan on when and how to get back on track. While other actions and supports are sometimes necessary, you must simply restart.
If you have wiggle room in your deadline and the time away has refreshed you, then option 1 is for you. If you suffer from procrastination, option 2 is best. If you are working towards an inflexible deadline, then choose option 3.
The reality is life happens to everyone, and we all get thrown out of our routines. The key to regaining writing momentum is to carve out time/space regularly to write and then start, either immediately or tomorrow!
Whether it's been two days, two weeks, two months or two years, you can regain writing momentum!
Cultivating writers...one tip at a time!
