Work Schedule

The last couple weeks, I've been working totally out of my home and developed a schedule that I find works well.

Wake up - 8am-9am.

Read news, go on run, go on walk, check email, make breakfast...some combination of those things for about 1 hour. But no longer.

9am/10am-work until 12-1pm - Writing (scenes or outline or editing)

1pm-4pm - break. Walk, run, read book, watch movie, eat lunch, watch a tv show, do errands (am looking into other break activities)

4pm-7pm - back to writing

7pm onwards - whatever, make dinner, go out, relax

One the hardest things about switching from an office job to a writing job - a thing people don't talk about much - is the psychological aspect of the work. Certainly, it takes self discipline to get yourself to work without a boss, but it is actually something else as well, the self discipline to relax. Writing screenplays is a long haul compared to writing an article and a short haul compared to writing a novel. You can't do it all at once. Your mind needs breaks. You can't allow the project to take over your life. And you can't beat yourself up over every spare minute thinking to oneself - "I need to be working now." That can't be healthy. But then again, you don't want to work just 2 hours a day and surf the internet. You'd feel like a real tool. So how to fix it? I've found the long lunch break in the afternoon re-energizes me. It used to be I could only write in the AM. All my energy came in the AM, all my good thoughts. What I've found with the long afternoon break is that I'm just as vigorous in the afternoon now and oftentimes will write past my 7pm stop time if I have nothing scheduled. These are good things. I found myself being less productive in front of the computer when I tried to work for 5 hours straight. For one thing, my first hour would be lazy and I wouldn't get to work right away because I had so much time. And then I'd get tired in the later hours and again be unproductive. I find 3 hour chunks to work best. 2 hours is good. I'd say 1.5 hours is the minimum to get anything good done. And if you get hot, well, the sky is the limit, just keep going. But 3 hours is good. 4 hours is great. I've yet to find a better analogy than athletics. It just feels like practice used to feel. You can't go forever, but you also know when you aren't practicing hard.