We’ll soon be thinking about the New Year’s Resolutions we want to make for 2017. For those who write, at least one of those resolutions will likely be about finding more time to write. I know that’s what I’d like to find in 2017.

It’s not enough, though, to resolve to find that time. I know from experience that before one can keep that resolve, one needs to know what obstacles one must overcome. So the resolution becomes not finding the time, but overcoming specific obstacles and then once they are overcome, using the found time to actually write.

Therefore, before I can resolve to find the time, I have to resolve to use my time to write, and thus I have to ask what has been keeping me from doing that.

Here is my thinking on the self-sabotaging techniques I have experienced over the years and what I’ve realized about finding a way out of the traps I set for myself. It all amounts, really, to that Chinese proverb again: “The way out is the way in.” Or as I sometimes say, “we have to cook with what we have on hand.” That is, we have to look at what’s in the pantry of our own conduct and work with it to find and use that time we want for writing.

Here’s what I see in my time pantry:

Obstacle: Cleaning Up Too Much
I’ve read poets and writers on the subject of sweeping or desk cleaning or even going through all the closets before being able to write. I get like that. How can I leave the world of responsibilities to enter the world of the unknown – what will I write about? What will I find out by writing about it? The unknowns are unsettling. The only way I can write is to make sure I have battened down the hatches–cleaned up, stocked the refrigerator, paid the bills. When every thing is taken care of, I can, I think, safely take the plunge into the unknown.

Because I don’t want my outer world to crumble while I build an inner world, I used to take care of “life administration” for days, and only when feeling solidly ahead of the game there, write for days. This rhythm was natural after being a student and a teacher for many years–work hard, then vacation comes, several times throughout the year.

Remedy:
I am no longer a classroom teacher, but I realize that the feeling that comes with having “vacation time” is what I am after. While I am writing, I am “away,” lost in words, and not worrying about the tasks of home. So instead of gripping about all the tasks of home, I try to think of writing as a well-deserved vacation.

I am still learning to apportion cleaning, gardening and life maintenance so they don’t take up all the hours of all my days before I can write. However, the act of “putting things in order” before I enter the “chaos of creating” remains valuable as it settles me down, so I don’t begrudge the tasks of living as long as I have writing days on my schedule.

Obstacle: Helping Others Too Much
It’s hard to believe the world can go on without me while I take time to write, moving words around to show me what I am feeling and thinking. So out of this disbelief, sometimes instead of writing, I look for ways of helping others to make myself feel like a better person. On the other hand, helping those who have asked me for help or those I see requiring help, invariably affects me. What I’ve done and learned shows up in my writing.

Remedy:
Since it is a two-way street, instead of trying to build more boundaries between myself and the world of people I help, I try to see myself as living in a house with many windows that I enjoy sitting by. I have to make sure I sit by the writing window frequently enough but take in the view from other windows, too. When I feel like myself, I write better!

Obstacle: Night-Time Decision Making
When I am tired after too much life administration, socializing, caring for a home and loved ones, I often decide I have to free myself from this self-imposed writing life. I want to go to bed without thinking of when I’ll get back to the writing. So I think about different kinds of jobs and about people to network with to land one. Some of my ideas are quite elaborate and involve moving for periods of time to other cities where, I convince myself, I can somehow teach four courses at a college, grade scores of papers each week, attend faculty meetings and write more than I do now.

Remedy
Writing is always a part of the lives I design. What I have learned to do is write something during these fantasies, even if it is only a few sentences, so I recognize that the passion I have for writing is fueling my escape plans. Sometimes what I have written becomes something I work with when I sit down again to write.

Obstacle: Knowing I Should, But Not Clearing Time for Writing
When I was helping my husband run a company instead of teaching, I worked for the company three days a week and wrote at least two days by going away from our home, which housed his business. He preferred to work from home, so I used what would have been rent money for office space to build a retreat house. Today, we live in that house. It is not easy for me to replicate those retreat days, but I play at piling all the paper and books that have accumulated on my desk and tucking it all in a corner of my studio office.

Remedy
After I tuck the pile away on those days that I still have work to do, I keep myself from opening my email program before getting to work on a poem or an essay, even though I am a “clean the plate” (or in this case, the inbox) type person. The correspondence and work that awaits me after I’ve written may be a little more than on non-writing days, but I feel happier about doing it once I’ve gotten to the writing first and so I am more effective.

Creating my New Year’s Resolution
I see that the way out of my self-sabotaging behavior is to not judge myself harshly when I make it hard to write. I must see the actions I take not as obstacles to writing more, but as quirky ways I have of trying to succeed at writing more.

Therefore, I, Sheila Bender, resolve to look into my quirks and enjoy the way I know I’ve re-designed them so in 2017, I find (and use) the extra time I want to write.

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What are your resolutions about your writing for the coming year? What are you afraid will keep you from maintaining them? How can you approach a redesign so that you can have the life you want and write? Let us know in a comment below.