A Writer’s Daily Routine | A Day In the Life of a Writer

Writing a book can be a long, hard grind. On the other hand, writing can be fun.
Writers love to write. Writing is a true joy when it is done for the sake of writing alone. Writing is both art and meditation. For me, writing is akin to a spiritual practice. Writing gets me into the flow state. Writing keeps me in the flow. Writing is my Zen.
I write whenever I get chance. I wake up and I want to write about the dreams that I had.
When I am driving, I want to write about the flow of life. Of-course I don’t write while driving but my mind is often flooded with ideas, thoughts and new observations on human life.
When at work, I want to write about people and their lives. I want to write stories of hope and inspiration. I am writing in my mind all the time.
My mind chatters non-stop like a drunk poet until I let it loose and write something.
My heart which is like a sponge soaks in other people’s emotions, good or bad. I feel for them. Sometimes, I feel I can hear their thoughts. I want to become their unspoken voice.
I want to sing the songs of human journey. Songs of this earth, our home, this life, of love and of loss.
I write. This is why I write.
A Day In My Life
This is how I write.
6:00 am: Get up. Kiss my love. I boil water to make green tea, brush and get fresh.
6:30 am: I sit on my writing desk and begin writing.
7:30 am: Finish the morning writing session. Dress for work and prepare breakfast.
8:00 am: Leave home. Drop my love to work. Continue driving to my office.
8:30 am: I listen to podcasts while driving. I generally listen to The James Altucher Show, The Tim Ferriss Show, The School of Greatness with Lewis Howes , The Art & Business of Writing with Chris Jones and The Smart Passive Income with Pat Fylnn.
9:25 am: Make myself a coffee. Read my emails. Re-read my to-do list from last night.
9:45 am: Scan through the day’s meetings. Set up new calls or meetings based on emails from past 10-12 hours.
10:00 am: Work. No emails, no internet unless required.
12:00 noon: Take a break. Go for 10 min walk.
12: 10 pm: Eat lunch.
12:30 pm: Reply to all mentions on Twitter. Acknowledge and reply to blog comments and comments on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, etc.
12:55 pm: Reply to emails.
1:15 pm: Do a 15 minutes status call with my team*. Resolve road blocks, if any. Discuss and review results and growth.
*As a writer and authorpreneur, it is critical to have a team (atleast 1 personal assistant/researcher). My company provides Virtual Personal Assistants (VPAs) to artists and creative people: writers, musicians, anyone for $199 (part-time) and $399 (full time). If you would like to have a VPA, contact me.
1:30 pm: Go for second walk. Listen to some songs.
1:40 pm: Make myself second coffee. Write a new blog post or edit one from my saved drafts. If it is M, W or F, publish a new post.
3:00 pm: Finish rest of the work for the day. (I work as a senior business consultant for healthcare companies).
5:00 pm: Start for home. Listen to Audio books. Make phone calls to my friends and business associates.
6:00 pm: Get home, relax, get fresh.
6:10 pm: Cook and/or eat dinner. Run the dishwasher. Pack lunch for next day, if there are leftovers. We do try our best to cook extra so that we can eat our own food for lunch. Saves lunch money, time and calories.
7:00 pm: Leave for YMCA/gym. Car talk (me and my girlfriend)
7:20 pm: Run 1 mile. Do 20 minutes of elliptical. Lift weights or do body weight exercises. (Listen to music or half-finished podcasts from the day).
8:10 pm: Cool down. Do 10 minutes of Sauna and/or Steam.
8:25 pm: Head back to home. If groceries needs to be done, do that.
8:45 pm: Take shower.
9:00 pm: Make to-do list for the next day.
9:15 pm: Read for pleasure. Occasionally, watch a good movie or documentaries.
10:00 pm: Poetry writing and/or editing my manuscript.
10:30 pm: Bed time.
Writing Habits
Morning writing
I sit on my writing desk by 6:30 am. Then I write a few keywords from my dreams if they are still lingering in my mind. Sometimes, I will just draw an image. This is mainly for the purposes of building list for future writing materials.
Then, depending on my mood, schedule and timeline, I write new chapters of my book or edit the last one. If I have an interesting Quora question in my queue, I write answer to it.
Day writing
Depending on my day and work load, during the day I will usually write for the Naked Soul blog.
Night writing
At night, I will sit down and write poetry. I will post these pieces on my social media accounts and would tweet on Twitter.
Waiting in line
If I am waiting in line (irrespective of place or reason), I am writing on Quora.
I use my Quora answers as seed materials for my future blog posts. Vice versa, I use my blog posts as materials to answer questions on Quora.
Weekend writing
On weekends, I allocate few extra hours of writing. I would spend the time to mainly write new blog posts.
My goal is to write enough so that next time I can pick up my draft post during week days and edit it and be able to publish it during lunch hours when at work.
Solitude writing
When I am home alone for few days or a week at times, I use this sacred time to mainly write new poetry.
I also use the solitude time to do a lot of re-vision and re-writing.
Timed writing
I practice timed writing where my typical goal is to write 500 words or more in 25-30 minutes. Next time, during one of my editing sessions, when I pick up a piece from my timed writing session, I would take out a lot of fluff and leave just the cream.
Then, I would either turn it into a poetry or use it as a opening sentence for a paragraph or a new chapter or may be a new book idea altogether.
iPhone writing
The notes app on my iPhone has over 100 notes as of right now. And this is a new phone.
I am typing small notes, small pieces, small poems, small quotes, small observations all the time on my iPhone.
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What do you think? Do you want to be a writer or a poet? Or are you already in the grind of life and creative process? Tell me more and share with us your thoughts. The first 10 commenters are always my favorite and I like to personally communicate with them.
Very nice!
Thanks Husnain! 🙂
This is a topic that’s close to my heart…
Take care!
Enjoy Lindsey! Glad to hear that!
This is a very nice n inspiring page.Creativity is the best.
Thank you Andrews. I totally agree. C\Being creative is the joy of life.
I absolutely love your blog and find a lot of your post’s to be what precisely I’m looking for. Do you offer guest writers to write content for you? I wouldn’t mind composing a post or elaborating on a number of the subjects you write about here. Again, awesome weblog!