Confessions of a Reformed “Write 30 Minutes a Day” Evangelist

A rewind from the archives!

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

PNP will be on winter hiatus through January 6. Until then, I’ll be rewinding some of my favorites from the archives. Happy holidays, everyone!

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I have a confession to make. I used to be a “write 30 minutes a day” evangelist. 

In graduate school, I enrolled in a dissertation writing program through the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity. The program preached the mantra that you should carve out at least 30 minutes of daily writing time every workday in order to be a more productive writer. NCFDD cites the work of writing scholar Robert Boice who’s research found that scholars who wrote just 30 minutes a day produced significantly more pages than writers who wrote sporadically or in larger chunks of time separated by multiple work days in between. 

Desperately seeking a writing habit, I drank the kool aid and began following the 30 minutes a day practice. Daily writing did wonderful things for my productivity. Writing became habitual and I became accountable to myself for that daily ritual. Ideas would pop into my head at other parts of the day because the daily flow of working on a project kept my mind on topic, just as Boice saidith. I no longer binge-wrote before deadlines so my stress levels around writing decreased. I simply prioritized writing more and no longer waited to be inspired to write. I also began enjoying writing more. 

Like all good evangelists, I preached the doctrine of “write every day” to anyone who would listen. I participated in and created bible studies writing groups that centered around the precept of daily writing and eagerly anticipated how the practice was going to revolutionize the lives of my comrades. I desperately wanted them to experience the freedom I found. 

“You, too, will find deliverance by accepting a daily writing practice into your hearts as lord and savior.”

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The Truth Shall Set You Free 

Some of my writing colleagues converted to the practice, while others resisted and protested daily writing as a viable option for them. I must further confess that I initially judged my atheist colleagues as not trying hard enough to make daily writing work for them. I finally began to reevaluate my devotion after my third writing group failed to produce the number of converts I had expected. 

Helen Sword

, a fellow reformed Boiceian, designed a survey project where she sought to prove many of Boice’s assertions about effective writing practices. In her survey of over 1000 academics, she expected to find that many of them were daily writers. To her surprise, seven out of eight participants did not write every day, and she was unable to demonstrate daily writing as a predictor of success. Considering these findings, she decided to look at Boice’s research more closely and found several issues with his research design.

For example, in one of Boice’s oft-cited experiments with daily writing, he notes that 27 participants proved his tenets, yet as Sword points out, he began with 42 participants and lost 15 in the process. He only mentions this point in passing without reflection in his book Professors as Writers. That means that Boice’s methods “did not sit with many of the academics on whom they were imposed” (p. 317). You can read Sword’s full article here. 

I only recently came across Sword’s study, but I had begun sensing my faith may have been overdetermined for some time. What was working in my writing groups was the accountability and sociality of writers coming together to discuss writing and exchange strategies. What didn’t work for them were rigid rules for success that were prescribed for every writer everywhere. Experimentation and trial and error seemed to be the better teachers than religious dogma.

Imagine that? It seems so simple now.

So Where Does This Leave Boice’s Prodigal Daughter?

I accept the fact that writing doesn’t have a built-in accountability structure like teaching and service and as a result I have to prioritize my writing time and make my own schedule. I accept the fact that Boice and NCFDD are valuable resources that taught me a lot about writing and helped me develop habits that work for me. I still use these resources today. I also accept the fact that while prioritization, accountability, and regularity are all incredibly useful for productive writers, the exact configuration of what that looks for each person is infinite.

I am also thinking about the research on multitasking that suggests it's more productive to concentrate on one thing at a time, when structurally possible, rather than juggling multiple things at once. Spending 30 minutes writing, followed by 30 minutes on course prep, and then 30 minutes on a service meeting while checking emails in between might not lead to our most productive selves. Professor and writing coach Cathy Mazak suggests working on one project at a time for as long as possible, such as blocking teaching related tasks together and writing project tasks together.

For example, as a tenure track faculty member at an R1, I might block all my teaching-related tasks on T/Th while devoting MWF to writing project tasks. Of course, the exact configuration of time blocks is reliant on how much time your particular location in the academy allots for teaching and research and what your personal priorities are.

Writing advice in Publish Not Perish, or elsewhere is ineffective as dogma. Each writer must try on strategies for themselves and experiment to determine what makes sense for them and, importantly, what must be shed when it does not work for them. I’ll leave you with a quote from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass that hummed in my ears when I was shedding the evangelical religion of my childhood:

…re-examine all you have been told in school or church or any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul…

I would love to hear from YOU in the comments about your own experiences with daily writing. What worked about this strategy and what didn’t?