“You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.”
–Charles Burton
Physician writers and authors often have a hundred other demands competing for their attention throughout the day, every day. How, then, to find time to write creatively?
Here are three tips to help you make the most of your creative moments:
1.Carry around a small notebook (or its equivalent).
Ever been in the shower, or in the car, or in a meeting, and have thoughts about your creative work-in-progress, or ideas for your next book or essay, and think something along the lines of, “Gee, I hope I remember that; that was a good sentence/phrase/idea/bit of dialogue; I’d love to write that down”? Keep a notebook handy, and you can indeed write it down. You’ll never have to lose your best creative thoughts again.
I keep the same small notebook with me everywhere I go; it’s a flexible, bound paperback that is small enough to fit in my purse. Take the time to find one that works for you: maybe it will need to fit in a pocket of your white coat, or inside your jacket; maybe you are comfortable keeping your notes on a smartphone or other electronic device. (For me it is faster to handwrite my notes, and speed is important, not only for efficiency’s sake, but so I don’t lose my train of thought faster than I can write it down. I also know I won’t be distracted by a text or some other notification.)
2. Identify your most creative times of day, and find ways to write during those times.
For many physicians, they find their best writing time to be early in the morning, before work and when all is still quiet at home. Others (like myself) find the evening or early nighttime hours, after dinner, to be most conducive to creative writing. Still others will find that it is at any time when they can have a bit of silence and solitude.
I encourage you to pay attention to what times of day seem to work best for your creative energy, and do whatever you can to find a way to do your creative writing during those times. (If you’re looking for a book to help you with this, I highly recommend Dan Pink’s When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.)
3. Keep a dream journal.
You’d be amazed how many famous authors have reported that an idea for a story, book, or even series came to them in a dream. It’s not uncommon for authors to dream of their characters or even of scenes for their work-in-progress.
The trouble with dreams, of course, is that they can be so hard to remember once we get on with all the activities of the day. The best way to harness the power of good dreams (particularly if you’re a vivid dreamer) is to keep a dream journal at your bedside, and when you wake up in the morning, if you’ve had a dream or dream sequence that you don’t want to forget, jot it down. It needn’t take more than 10 minutes. And you never know when you might come back to that dream for inspiration.
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