Guide to Hacking the Optimal Writing Environment
By Jan O'Hara | July 16, 2018 |
A year and a half ago, in the grip of a writing deadline I feared I would miss, I discovered an environmental productivity hack I’ve used ever since.
Its unearthing came about by experimentation. I’d been trying to write in various public locations, but if I found a fruitful environment it was only a matter of time until something would drive me away. (A shrill laugh that couldn’t be neutralized by earplugs and headphones; flirting teens who’d repeatedly bump my table; an insistent bladder and remote bathroom, with no one reliable to watch my stuff during my absence.)
These jaunts proved expensive, too. Effectively I was earning temporary office space by paying in time (for my commute) or coin (parking fees, beverages, calorie-dense food.)
I haven’t even mentioned my introversion, which never thrilled to writing in public for extended periods.
Quest for the Ultimate Home Office
It became clear that I was after replicable and inexpensive quiet, which ideally meant writing at home. Unfortunately, my house had become a busy locale, which was the reason I ventured outside of it to write in the first place. No matter how early I woke or how I much I contorted my writing schedule, it never possessed a sense of repose or peacefulness.
Most problematic of all, my office—the only location I could seem to write without falling asleep—had become associated with stalled progress and interruptions. Each time I entered it, I could feel my deadline-driven anxiety rise.
Discovering the Secret Weapon
I don’t recall the exact precipitator, but one day, in a fit of desperation, I wound up in the basement laundry room with my laptop. And suddenly, what felt impossible was being accomplished, albeit in fits and starts. I returned the next day, and the next, and through books 1 and 2, the laundry room never lost its magic. In effect, I ended up discovering the wisdom in the following:
Stop trying to be disciplined and be a good person. Instead, put your efforts into setting up a supportive environment and creating the systems that allow you to follow through with good behaviors.” ~ a paraphrase of Dr. Doug Lisle, Ph.D, during a YouTube seminar on how to make healthful dietary changes become habitual
Basement laundry room, in its untidy glory
Why You Might Consider Pursuing an Environmental Writing Hack
Unless you are one of those 5,000-8,000 good-words-in-a-day geniuses or are consistently happy with your writing output, I’d encourage you to spend time and effort on optimizing your environment.
Consider that if you’re able to write 1000 words in a writing session and write 300 days of the year, a 5% improvement—a mere 50 words a day—would mean an extra 15,000 quality words written. A fifth to third of a book without any extra effort.
Going About the Environmental Hack
Where are you most productive in your writing? Do you know? If not, in the name of experimentation and learning, you might start keeping a spreadsheet. Do it in Excel or do it the old-fashioned way on paper, but do it. Record what you were working on, and when you started, where you were, and your word count or the number of hours you were able to spend in deep work. Then over a period of weeks—not days, because days are too granular and subject to random variability, like how much sleep you got the preceding night—see if you can detect a pattern.
Once you’ve discovered a productive location, break it down into its subcomponents. This allows you to continue to tweak the setup until it’s as close to ideal as possible. More importantly, if something should happen to your original location or you have to move, you can replicate the helpful elements in a different locale.
That’s what I did this summer (see photos below.)
For instance, this is what I like about the laundry room:
- The cement walls and tile flooring provide a sense of safety.
- Located next to the washroom.
- Quiet—the room materials absorb sound. If I need white noise, I have the laundry machines, but I keep all other noise sources out of the room, including the phone.
- It is small, no bigger than a closet, really, in terms of walking space, imparting a feeling of coziness.
- It contains no visual distractions and is decorated in earthy or neutral colors. (I removed all games from my laptop and keep the internet blocker running so it has never become a place associated with external distractions.)
- Its smells are associated with order, cleanliness and control. (The latter is critical to my writing as I’m most able to be wild on the page when my life feels non-chaotic.)
- The writing surface is a scarred wooden table used in the kitchen for years, so it is associated with family and health. The ToolMaster made the credenza, doubling down on the feeling I’m being embraced by my family as I write. Though now warped, its color reminds me of university library carrels, which I associate with hard work and goal attainment.
- As you can see, nothing in the room is fancy enough to cow me. My laundry machines are over thirty years old. (We’re still on our first top-loader because the ToolMaster is handy and the commercials about Maytag repairmen turned out to be true.) Everything speaks to utility, pragmatism, and a can-do spirit. For me, this is important because formality tends to invoke fussiness and perfectionism.
When Nearly Perfect Isn’t Good Enough
All that said, there are two things I strongly dislike about the laundry room, and this became relevant when my daughter left home and freed up a bedroom. First, it lacks natural light, and as a SAD sufferer, this is less than ideal. Second, it is cold. Even wrapped in a bathrobe and blanket during the summer, I can barely stay ahead of the chill.
Here’s how I took what I love about the basement and moved it into a space with light and heat.
- Safety—The room has a door and I’m able to place my back to the wall. (An improvement over the previous setup.)
- Facilities—The washroom is located next door.
- Quiet—This space is located at the opposite end of the house from the worst noise. Its carpet dampens sound. If I need white noise, I use the ticking of my mechanical timer or a YouTube video.
- Size—though the room is quite large, I’ve replicated the cubbyhole feeling by duct-taping posterboard around the outside edges of the writing surface. At some future date I’m going to try angling the desk, causing me to sit at the apex of the corner. I suspect that will feel cozier yet.
- Visual distractions—This was initially problematic. Shortly after I thought of repurposing the room, my husband had the same brilliant idea, except he wanted to use it for storage. Nor has my daughter removed all her belongings. I don’t need much room to write, but I cannot abide looking at clutter when I do. Hence the pseudo-credenza made of posterboard, which provides a simple, non-distracting view for $6 Canadian. I’m also in the progress of discarding and tidying what I can, so my trip to the desk has become more peaceful. Future tweaks might involve sewing different drapes and painting the room a cheerier color.
- Laundry room smell—an easy fix! When I do the household delicates, I hang them to dry in the closet.
- The writing surface and emotional furniture associations—I didn’t want to spend money, so I’m using the banquet table we bought and use for large family meals. I also spent a whopping $2.50 for a vinyl tablecloth, which I cut to size and duct taped to the table. The colors are soothing, earth-toned, and the table is no longer cold to touch.
- Avoiding formality—between my irreverent coffee mug (it says love you lots) and the inexpensive-but-functional furniture, my muse is happy. In fact, you never read this here, lest I jinx myself, but if the writing continues apace, book 3 will be complete in a few months.
Now over to you, Unboxeders. When it comes to writing, what is your best environmental productivity hack to date? If you’d like to do better, what one simple difference could you accomplish in the next week to improve your writing output?
[coffee]
A USA Today bestselling author, former family physician and academic, Jan O’Hara (she/her) left the world of medicine behind to follow her dreams of becoming a writer. She writes love stories that zoom from wackadoodle to heartfelt in six seconds flat: (Opposite of Frozen; Cold and Hottie; Desperate Times, Desperate Pleasures). Her latest Christmas novella, The Cowboy’s Comeback Christmas, is part of a 9-author-strong anthology (A Cowboy This Christmas: A Sweet Romance Anthology). She also contributed to Author in Progress, a Writer’s Digest Book edited by Therese Walsh.
I can write anywhere, if no one is talkingg directly to me. I usually write on my bed, laptop, tv on. I sit at coffee shops, museum benches, on the bus, shopping centers, anywhere, and I get my smartphone to write. Jotterpad and a large screen are enough for me (altought android’s portuguese keyboard could be better).
I don’t like quiet environments. I never felt good at libraries, the silence distracts me.
Silva, this only goes to show how different brains can be. I admire your flexibility and wish I could borrow it. If only it worked that way…
Jan, I love how you came to understand what *you* need and why the laundry room worked so well. Your new space is looking mighty cozy too.
I write best in my home office with all the things I need an arm-length away. It has a door so if the household gets too noisy with the kids I can close it (the pets hang out with me). I rarely have to anymore with my older one (the child, not the pet) off to college and the younger busy with school and work. Also she and her friends tends to be quieter :)
I also write on the back porch and in bed and I’ve even taken my writing to the beach. Honestly, since I became a writer nearly two decades ago, my homely environment starting at the kitchen counter has served me well. So very thankful.
It’s interesting to think about how requirements and locations might shift over time, Vijaya. Your locations sound peaceful and grounding.
Thanks–I enjoyed the way you experimented and found something that works and then adapted it. When I first started writing many decades ago I used to haul the typewriter around from place to place, depending on what I needed at that time. When I wanted to write away from home, I used pen and paper. I’ve found an ideal environment can change, too, although I’ve never been able to figure out why. I certainly love the way laptops have opened the door to so many different configurations and places. What a privilege, huh?
Laptops are indeed miraculous, Virginia. (I’m old enough to have first written on a manual typewriter, too.) Thanks for the reminder to approach them with gratitude.
Words to live by. Barbara Sher puts it as “See your problems as a design flaw in your world, and fix it.”
Nice! Succinct, too, Ken. Thanks.
I just sit down, alone and undisturbed, and write.
I prefer alone and undisturbed too, David. Sounds like you’re able to access that readily, which is fantastic.
Jan, I’ve written (both biz writing and personal) out of my old ’66 Airstream for at least 10 years. It’s been a cozy companion to my writing efforts or a witness to my writing dead ends. And my naps, always the naps.
Just lately I’ve been feeling like it might be time for a change, that I’m getting cramped out here—I might move back into the house to write. Then again, it might take me another 10 years to decide.
Here’s what the old trailer looks like (and even with its orange plaid, it’s less wrinkled than me):
https://www.tombentley.com/writing-discipline/round-out-your-thoughts—write-in-an-airstream/
That looks pretty darn cozy, Tom. I approve, though I’d personally need a much bigger work surface. I still often draft in pen and need space for my elbows to hit the counter.
“Stop trying to be disciplined and be a good person. Instead, put your efforts into setting up a supportive environment and creating the systems that allow you to follow through with good behaviors.” I’ve got to write that down somewhere – and then sit down to think about it.
I moved my desk to face the wall, because I was spending too much time staring out the window (and the glare was getting to be too much for me). I also moved to a desktop computer for the sake of my posture.
Now I realize my desk needs to stop being the place where things go when they don’t have a place of their own, because clutter is stressful. Back to the essentials: computer, books, pens, teapot – and handmade Jabberwocky head for bouncing off the desk when frustrations rise.
Deborah, before my current arrangement, I had a fancy desk in dark wood. Unfortunately, it had to be situated in one location and the glare was an issue. Sometimes you have to live with a place for a while before you know its advantages and disadvantages as a writing location.
Jabberwocky head sounds fun!
Have fun with the tidying. ;)
Love how you experiment and work within your needs, Jan. Listening to yourself, and finding what works for YOU, is important. We are all so very different.
I write at the dining table, on the living room sofa, or out back on the patio in nice weather. I find I don’t write well in my office. While I write and edit for business in my office, my creative writing, writing novels, seems to require a unique location.
Oh, one thing I found worked for me… Work writing and editing is done on my computer, in my office. Creative writing I do on my laptop. I’ve disconnected the internet on my laptop, so Word and Scrivener are the only programs. I find this keeps me focused when writing. No social media distractions!
Dee
Dee, when it comes to the computer setup, we apear to have similar processes. I keep my laptop lean and use it mostly for fiction whereas all my business-y stuff happens on the mainframe. Interesting we’d have that in common.
And yes to the need for individualization.
I sympathize with finding a productive space free of persistent clutter and interruptions. The most effective addition I’ve lately made is running a “white noise” equivalent on the computer to both quell ambient sounds (like the neighbor’s alarming air conditioner) and to provide a sense of concentration and mental relief. YouTube has many of these–my go-to right now on these hot summer days is a multi-hour “thunderstorm and ocean sounds” with a non-distracting shoreline image.
Jennie, I make use of YouTube for those videos as well.
I have also downloaded a few white noise tracks (coffee shop and subway station) which I can listen too on an endless loop when I need to be disconnected from the internet.
Thank you, Jan, for this timely post. I’m in the process of setting up in a new writing space – I call it my kennel as it’s not much bigger than a dog house. Too small even for a bed and my husband has been using it as a ‘dump and run’ zone, but I’m more enthused about it now having read your post and seen your space. The kennel is very small but it does have a window and a sliding DOOR! With two very noisy children, it’s a necessary luxury. I had to splurge on a new desk (AUD $138) though, as working at a children’s table was killing my back. It’s okay. I think I would always prefer more space, enough for a comfy chair to sit in to read and maybe swing the odd cat, but this is what I have for now and so it will do. My productivity has improved since moving in here and I’m nearing completion of my first manuscript, so it can’t be too bad, can it? Thanks again, Jan.
Alayne, congratulations on approaching The End! As someone who circled that drain for years, I applaud you. Hope you’ll mark the occasion with some ceremony.
If this piece helps you with ideas about tweaking I’d be pleased, but I’m MORE pleased you’ve found a workable situation.