3 Ways to Prep for a Week of Writing

Maybe you’ve established an amazing writing routine. You get up, have your cup of coffee, sit down at the computer, and write. Yet somehow days and weeks go by and you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything.

Or maybe you have the opposite problem. Your fingers land on the keyboard, and you’re not sure what to work on next. Client work, a submission to a publication, your personal writing projects… the work is looming and you can’t extrapolate what takes the highest priority.

Either way, your writing time is precious. Many writers only have a few productive hours per day. After all, we’re not machines. Quality writing takes effort — both to create and edit.

On top of that, many writers are juggling competing interests, myself included. I have a 9–5 job, write for a few freelance clients, publish in Medium and a few other places online, and am working on a larger memoir. I only have about 1.5–2 hours per day to really focus on writing.

Because of the time limitations, when I sit down to write, I want to only write. I don’t want to waste time planning or doing research.

So I’ve created a system of weekly writing prep. I have three tasks: organizing my ideas, planning my writing for the week, and creating outlines. I do one task per day on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Because of this system, I’m ready to go by Monday morning.

1) Organize your ideas

As writers, we often gather ideas from real life. We read; we meet people; we draw inspiration from the mundane as well as exciting.

I’m one of those people who bookmarks things all over the internet. It could be articles, tweets photos… anything that inspired me. I also had notebooks where I’d jot down ideas, hoping to turn my own thoughts into written content later.

Yet eventually I realized that I wasn’t doing anything with my collection of bookmarks and ideas. I had long lists and nothing more.

I needed to take time to organize my sources of inspiration in a meaningful way.

Now, I take time every Friday to comb through the prior week’s ideas. I use an app called Pocket to bookmark articles. I read through everything I’ve saved and make highlights and notes. Anything I’ve jotted down, I transfer into a note-taking tool. I use Roam Research, but Evernote, Notion, or OneNote would also work. I save photos, memes, and other visuals to Google Keep. I use tags in each of the tools to keep my ideas organized.

Does this work directly benefit my upcoming week of writing? Not necessarily. But by doing this, I am preparing for future writing. When I need inspiration related to a topic, I go back through my tags to find inspiration.

2) Plan your week of writing in blocks

As I mentioned, I have a limited amount of time per day for writing. That might be different for you, but we all abide by the same calendar. You still have a container of days and writing that needs to be completed.

On Saturdays, I plan out my week of writing. I look at any deadlines for freelance work or publications. I think about any Medium articles that I want to write, as well as my Substack and blog. Each block is organized into a calendar using Trello.

I have been writing long enough that I know (roughly) how long it will take to write 1,000 words, 1,500 words, etc. Each day of the week has a chunk of writing assigned to a block of time, and this is especially useful for people who publish every day. Depending on how much time you devote to writing, you may have multiple blocks per day.

This method would work even for lengthy projects like novels. The blocks could be assigned specific parts of your WIP like “Work on Chapter 3 on Thursday.” The idea is to plan out your days so that you don’t waste time wondering what to work on that day.

I structure my weeks so that more intensive writing occurs earlier in the week. By Thursday, I’m usually tired from my 9–5 job and know that I have less energy for writing. Most of my weekend work is centered around planning so that I am refreshed for the next week of writing.

One thing I should note about my process is that I do not do any editing during my writing blocks. I consider that a separate effort and it’s important to me to preserve the writing blocks for new writing. However, if you’re working on a novel or any longer-form content that requires intensive editing, you can (and probably should) use some of your blocks for editing.

3) Create your outlines

My blocks of time are very broad, such as “Write the next issue of my Substack.” On Sundays, I create outlines for each of my time blocks.

In these outlines, I’m creating a bullet point list of the main ideas, as well as links to any references I need. This is where my Friday efforts of organizing my ideas become so helpful. I’ll gather quotes, states, notes to myself, or other sources of inspiration and drop them into my outlines.

Even if your block of time is “Work on Chapter 3” you can still create an outline or otherwise prepare for what you’ll work on during that writing block. Are you hoping to write through a specific scene? Do you need to re-read a chapter you’ve already finished to prepare? Should you think through some character traits before tackling the dialogue?

The goal here is much like the goal of my Saturday planning: I want to spend the weekly blocks of time writing, not planning on the fly.

By the time I’m done on Sunday, each block of writing time for the week has an associated outline. When I sit down to write on Monday, I pull up the day’s outline and start writing.

Spend your time only on writing

Since I started my 3-day system of organizing, planning, and outlining, I’ve found that I’m much more productive with my writing.

Do I have days that don’t go as planned? Of course. Sometimes the writing is harder than expected or I’m just not feeling it when I sit down at the computer.

I leave some wiggle room in my week. Fridays are usually my writing catch-up time. I like having a chunk of time available in case something doesn’t go as planned or I fall behind.

But overall, this system makes it easier to keep track of my progress. I know what I have planned for the day, have all of the resources ready, and can easily identify whether or not it gets done.

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