In Defense of Structure
How developing a routine can benefit your writing life.
We did it, y’all.
We made it through to the halfway point of summer and beyond. Sure, there are still heat waves, hurricanes, and other forms of horribleness meteorological, existential, and political to grapple with, but the days are officially shortening and with any luck, we’ll be in the cool breezes of fall before we know it.
In addition to all the upheaval that has been happening in the news, I’ve had some changes in my own life this month. I won’t go into detail here, but I want to mention it in light of some reflections and actions I’ve made on creating more structure in my life after my DIY writing retreat in June.
The following are the changes I chose to make to increase structure and routine in my life and how those changes are sticking around even in the midst of upheaval specifically because I have prioritized them.
For the Love of Structure
I thrive on structure in all areas of my life. I’m a plotter, not a pantser. The protagonist of my debut novel lives and dies by to-do lists. I recently bonded with someone over our shared love of spreadsheets. I have a diagnosis, for goodness’ sake, that has a love of routine and various levels of disorientation when that routine goes awry baked into its DSM-5 criteria (problematic as those criteria are), for goodness’ sake.
But for all my love of structure, because of a lot of extenuating circumstances over the last two years (the pandemic, caregiving for my mom, grieving my grandparents, balancing my former partner’s and my work stress, getting diagnosed with autism), a lot of the structure in my workaday life had fallen out the window between the end of lockdown and now.
Why Does This Matter?
If you’re a person who thrives on structure and that structure vanishes, things quickly become miserable. For me, this initially looked like being a catatonic blanket burrito for about two months before pivoting into “being okay with chaos.” I told myself I was, but from visual clutter around my house to an overloaded schedule, everything depressed me, stressed me out further, and made me want to burrow even further into comfort food, blanket burritos, unhealthy drinking habits, and a general lack of productivity.
Beyond these symptoms of a stressed-out life, and probably because of them, I’d been living in a reactionary holding pattern. That is, instead of making proactive, conscious choices and planning aspects of my life as I’d done before, I had basically internalized that there was no point to doing that. Instead, I would react to what life presented to me.
Too move forward in this life, it’s important to be deliberate. Some of my closest friends I admire most are the ones who always seem to have it together, to know what’s best for them. In this next act of my life, I want to treat myself kindly, with the respect I know I deserve. To do that, I need time, health, and headspace to act deliberately.
Even if you don’t think you do, I’d wager a guess that developing a routine might help you out by giving you more time and headspace for your writing life. Mason Currey’s book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work even suggests that routine helps rather than harms creativity.
NB: To be fair, sometimes because of trauma and stress it’s impossible to get out of that holding pattern. If that’s the case, this post isn’t really for you. Be gentle with yourself and read up on burnout, how to mitigate it.
The main ways I’ve been returning to routine and reimposing structure in my life? Here’s what I’m doing now, in case that’s useful to you, as well as how it’s helping.
Every Day I’m…
…limiting myself to four hours of non-work-related screen time.
This sounds like a lot until your phone hits you with that weekly screen time tracker on a Sunday morning. Something I’ve found helps, a tip from a friend, is to move the icon for whatever app regularly ensorcels you so that it’s at least two taps out of reach of your home screen. For me this was Instagram, but after a couple of times of shifting its position, I don’t crave Reels and memes quite so much anymore.
…limiting myself to no more than two to-do list items.
You ever have a task you need to get done CONSTANTLY? You keep pushing it back and back and back on your to-do list, rewriting it day in and day out. I’ve realized that stops when you commit to one, maybe two, things per day.
…meditating for fifteen minutes.
Even if I hate it. I hear eventually you grow to like it, like jogging or maybe being imprisoned by the Phantom of the Opera. This was difficult for me at first, but on a recent weekend when family came to visit, I learned that skipping over meditation, journaling, and other mindfulness practices took its toll!
…journaling.
I love to journal, but because I do it at night (we’re not all morning pages people, I stg), sometimes I’ve been too zonked to lift the hinges from my skullcap and vomit my day out onto the page. (#flowery) Now I’m making sure I do, even if it’s just a sentence or two. One major thing that has helped is Cecily Sailer’s Tarot for Creative Spirits journal, which I’m using to power through some much-needed shadow work.
Every Week I’m…
…spending at least Wednesday evening having a nice, long writing session.
If I get more time in on other evenings, great! If not, I know that I have three juicy hours with myself and my characters once a week.
I came to this idea when I reserved Wednesday nights for one of Hurley Winkler’s writing workshops in the spring. Once it was over, I decided not to let “schedule creep” happen but rather to continue to reserve Wednesday evenings for myself. Before I made this choice, I’d been scrounging for more regular but brief writing windows, and nothing was getting done in 30 minutes or less. Now, no matter what else is going on, no matter how desperately I want to grab a beer or go for a walk with a friend, Wednesday from 6 to 9 p.m. are sacred.
…waking up early on Saturday to go to the farmers market.
“Early” is a word that here means “not sleeping till noon,” which is what I was doing at the depths of my reactionary burnout period. I bribe myself with a pastry and coffee from a local shop, buy local fruit and veg on farmer’s row, and then have the rest of the day before my biweekly D&D campaign to write and do chores.
…getting in 150 minutes of movement.
This looks roughly like two 45-minute days and two 30-minute days (or two 45-minute and one 60-minute days) of exercise a week. You don’t necessarily have to do this. I’m only doing it and the eating better shtick because my cholesterol was on the border of Not Bueno at my most recent physical, but I will say I’ve noticed that I have more energy even when I have a late freelance night now.
…planning for the week ahead.
It’s disgustingly simple how sitting down for half an hour and looking over my schedule for the week ahead helps me get in a good rhythm to handle it.
In Defense of Flexibility
I’m also doing my best to check in with accountability partners to make sure I stay on track. My good friend is going to check in with me about goal achievement, such as whipping this Substack newsletter into shape. (Meanwhile, I’m getting to hear all the awesome things about her latest manuscript!)
It is important even as you’re imposing all of this structure to be flexible. Schedules change, opportunities come up, and there can be pressure to make a decision on the fly. Mindfulness is important in this regard. That way, you can know yourself, know your needs and wants without having to stretch to understand them, and then know if you’re willing to bend in a direction or if doing so will compromise your needs in that moment.
I will say that there are times when flexibility doesn’t help, though. Primarily, I’m seeking to stop reacting, making as many of my choices deliberate and conscious as possible. And no more wearing hair shirts! No more apologizing for how others perceive your structured choices.
The hardest part of getting this structure back has been realizing that it’s nothing new. This is stuff I already knew how to do, especially eating healthily and exercising, but because I’d been in that reactionary, stressed-out, burned-out headspace for so long, I’d forgotten about it.
If this return to structure in my life has any sort of theme, it’s almost certainly “A Tiny Bit of Discomfort for a Whole Lot of Payoff.” As I mentioned at the top, life is evolving right now. It has its growing pains for sure, but because I have a trusty structure in place to make sense of every different day, every different week, those evolutions aren’t impacting me negatively the way they would be if I were in a reactionary headspace. And because that’s true, I have more regular sleep, personal, and writing time than I otherwise would have—all things that suffered in one way or another before my return to structure.
Come what may, I’m glad to be getting back to it.
Internet Magpie Time!
Think of me as that friend who sends you a millionty one Reels, articles, and Tic-Tacs, but in a more curated three-at-a-time kind of fashion. Here are a few things I’ve enjoyed of late:
“Food Poem” by Emily Alexander in Narrative (Behind a free subscription wall)
Divergent Conversations podcast and Neurodivergent Insights for anyone who struggles with routine because of an autism and/or ADHD diagnosis. I found Dr. Neff’s website when I was desperately seeking this article on autism burnout recovery last fall. The lessons they share are life-changing.
“5 Ways to Keep Focus When Burned Out and Brain-Fried.” This is an article I wrote for Writer’s Digest four years ago.
Jessica xx