Productivity
Sheltering in Place Is Not a Writer's Retreat
But there's a tool to help you make the most of it.
Posted April 13, 2020 Reviewed by Ekua Hagan
Is this a wildly creative and productive time for you?
If the answer is no, you are not alone. I keep hearing people say they intended to treat sheltering in place as a writer’s retreat or high-productivity period—a chance to create that thing they’ve been meaning to create—but it just isn't happening.
If you are super productive right now, good for you. I love you anyway.
But most of us—even those who have the incredible good fortune not to be sick or in desperate straits at this moment, who have no overwhelming caregiving or job responsibilities, and who are safely sheltering ourselves (and protecting others) by hiding out in our homes—are not at our best.
We may have flashes of insight. We may catch a glimpse of beauty. But the waves of emotion can come fast and hard. News reports may buffet us from thought to thought. Interrupting sleep. Erasing the potential for sustained anything.
Or the interruptions may come in the form of children, asking for things. Those small people may also be the conduit to other demands. Sheltering in place has created an accidental army of homeschoolers—but with a big twist.
In regular life, if you decide to teach your own kids, without any actual school involved, then you surely have a lot of content to prepare. But at least you control the mode of its delivery.
If you are instead trying, for the first time, to deliver a school’s content to your child through an online portal, you may be facing a whole new kind of admin nightmare. It’s like spending the day trying to navigate an insurer’s online claims portal while watching your children, who also need to learn how to use the portal, which operates by appointment at precise times of the day, for which you can't be late even though you don’t go anywhere, because you are trying to navigate a portal hastily prepared by other overworked people also trying to manage kids and jobs during challenging times. (If your internet is unreliable or unstable, which increased demand makes more likely, the job is that much worse.)
Then there’s the admin of trying to navigate the virus-filled world if you are fortunate enough not to have the virus. Do you go out? When and where? Do you wear a mask, and how do you find one or make one? Where do you get food? And how do you make sure the food is safe? What protocols should you adopt to protect your home and family?
If you disagree with anyone else in your life about these matters, which anecdotal evidence suggests is common, then all this gets exponentially more complicated. And these are the problems to have, as my father would say. The problems of the privileged and lucky. (And then there is navigating the guilt about that, and trying to figure out how to help others, in a world of social distancing.)
Amidst all, then, most of us are not writing the Great American Novel.
But here’s a bright spot: We don’t have to let all the ideas and reflections slip through our fingers either.
Several years ago, shortly after signing a contract to write my first book, I went through a really awful period in my life. Almost by accident, I invented a tool for writing in terrible times: the Would Have Written.
When I had no time for writing, I’d force myself to take 30 seconds to jot down what I would have written if I’d had the time to write that day.
I’d scribble the note in a journal, or in an email to myself or a friend—somewhere I could find it later. I’d catch these passing ideas and observations, so they weren’t lost to the muddle.
After a while, I began to tag these notes with the label “WHW” (for Would Have Written) so I could find and gather them later. The WHWs were waiting for me when recollecting in tranquility became more possible.
Last week, I started this practice again.
A WHW takes just three steps and 35 seconds:
- Open a journal, new email, or the Notes app on your phone—any blank page.
- Pause for five seconds to ask yourself what you would have written or created today if you’d had the time and wherewithal.
- Take 30 seconds to jot down a few words to describe it.
Some days those 30 seconds turn in to 30 minutes. Which is how this page got written.
What’s your Would Have Written for today? I’d love to see what you catch.
