When I first decided to put actual effort into writing my novel, I kept coming across the advice to “record your writing time.” Some sites only recommended recording how much I wrote in a day (aka the word count). However, other sites indicated that tracking other items, such as where I wrote, what topics I wrote, the time of day, etc., could help me improve the productivity of my writing sessions. I wasn’t sure which items would be best, so I decided to track a lot of them and then keep the items that worked for me.
My Experience
When I started, I tracked as many things I could find or think of that could help me become a more productive writer during my writing sessions. In retrospect, I wish I had only tracked a few items in the beginning because some days, I opted to omit writing completely since filling out my Excel sheet took me 20-30 minutes after each writing session. At that point, the Excel sheet was overbearing and unhelpful, so I eventually adjusted to the model of keeping only a few items in the tracker at a time. However, I did rotate the items as I saw fit and traded the items out based on what I needed at the time.
I’ll give my thoughts on each trackable item below, but if you decide to track your writing session, please don’t feel the need to track everything—especially not at the beginning. Only track what you need information for now, especially if you feel like tracking your sessions is taking too much time. For instance, after discovering my most productive hours of the day, I stopped tracking “time of day” since it wasn’t providing helpful information anymore. However, once my living situation changed, my writing hours shifted subtly (new living situations can significantly impact productivity), so I added “time of day” back into my tracker until I was settled into my new home.
Tracking your writing sessions can be beneficial, but only if you let it work for you and not against you. If you don’t know exactly what to track, maybe start with some of the trackable items below. But if you have a gut feeling about what you need to track, then go with your instincts. No one can make a better writing tracker for you than you!
Recommended Trackable Items:
Date
One thing that I always tried to include was the date. Not only could this help me see if I was more productive on certain days, but if I looked back and saw that I was either super productive or unproductive in a session, I was able to check it against my calendar to help me decide if maybe an external presence, such as family staying at the house, was impacting my session.
Time of Day
Type 1: Actual Time
For a while, I recorded the start time, stop time, and total time of all of my writing sessions. This is a very fruitful endeavor and can help you determine words per minute (WPM) during the session, which can help you discover how productive you are at any given time. However, recording this every single session was such a drag, and I often forgot to record my start or stop time, which left me guessing as to how much time I was actually writing. If I needed the actual time, I tried to record it, but if I needed the general time of day, I chose to record block timing (see next item).
Type 2: Block Time
For block timing, I separated my work day into three different blocks: Block 1 (9 am-1 pm), Block 2 (1 pm-6 pm), and Block 3 (6 pm-10 pm). If I was just looking to see what time of day I was writing, I opted for block timing because it was much simpler to record. During this time, I noted that I was most productive in Blocks 1 and 2. From there, I started marking down the general time I was writing and found that I was most consistently productive around 10 am and between 1 pm-3 pm. I thought this would be random knowledge I would never use, but if I know that I haven’t taken much of a break all morning and it’s already 1pm, I can pretty well guess that when I come back in 30-60 minutes, I will likely still be able to pick up on the creativity because it’s still within the time zone that I write best. It has also helped me to seek out other part-time jobs with flexible scheduling where I am not always working during my best writing hours.
Location
I originally thought tracking location to be a bit of bullshit, but I soon realized how necessary it was. I had a writing desk, so I didn’t think that I would need to track writing anywhere else. However, especially on days that I was procrastinating, I noticed that I avoided my writing desk, wrote in an armchair, and wrote significantly less than when I was disciplined and sat in my designated writing area. For me, it served as a good lesson in how much more productive I am in certain environments. In addition, I have moved several times, so finding which location within each new living space that I felt most comfortable writing is where I set up my writing area (typically a quiet place near a window).
I also tracked my location when I went out for a change of pace. I did well at a library but not at a coffee shop. I discovered that I am the type of writer who needs relative quiet to write quickly and effectively, and I am unable to block out idle chatter easily. However, suppose I need a day for a writing activity (often due to writer’s block or anxiety). In that case, I find that I am more fruitful when I leave my usual location(s) and head for a new, semi-quiet location where I can observe people, such as a park or quiet cafe.
From tracking location, I have supercharged my writing sessions by observing when to change location or when to work through the discomfort I feel while sitting at my home writing desk. This new knowledge has significantly improved my productivity.
Word Count
I like recording word count, but I also despise it. This is because the word count doesn’t necessarily determine how productive a session was, even though writers often use words per minute to measure success. Not meeting a specific word count goal can lead to crippling anxiety for me, so I always track word count in combination with another item; for me, that item was usually the draft stage and/or topic. Remember: word count can tell you a lot, but if you expect an outlining session to be as many words as a rough draft session, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
However, despite the anxiety it can cause, I really recommend tracking word count because when I recorded it in combination with the topic and/or draft stage, the information showed me where I was stuck. One time, I was at my typical WPM one day, and then I dropped to less than half of that productivity. I was initially anxious and frustrated, but then I realized I was writing less on one topic only. This helped me navigate the situation and discover that I didn’t give my antagonist enough of a backstory for his entrance; after I put together a more cohesive backstory with more precise motives, the book became easier to write.
I really do recommend word count as a tracking method, but know when to use it for your projects, or you may accidentally get incredibly discouraged.
Topic
Since I’m a writer who typically has several projects in the works, tracking which project I am on can help me gain insight into my WPM for the session. For instance, I write rough drafts of blog posts more quickly than my short stories, which I write faster than my book scenes. So, recording the topic reminds me that if my writing is less, it may be because I am comparing a day when I only wrote blog posts to a day when I only wrote in my book. It’s basically apples and oranges, so I want to give myself a more realistic view when I record the topic.
Recording topics can also help if you only have one project since you can always break a project down. For instance, once, I was writing a particular scene and had a lot of trouble with it. Later, I came across another scene that felt rather difficult. After reviewing my topic blurbs I recorded, I noticed that I was struggling with a particular character. In the next session, I was able to flesh out more of the character design, which brought scenes with that character back to a typical WPM session for me.
Topic doesn’t help everyone, but I find that it can give me a better overall picture of my writing sessions, so I always highly encourage it.
Draft Stage
I found that including the writing stage – outline, first draft, edits, etc. – was incredibly helpful when discouraged about my low-output writing sessions. I often changed my Excel sheet based on my mood so that I could show myself where I was stuck—or if I truly was stuck.
I often found that those low-output sessions were outlining or edits, which will be less writing and more thinking than rough drafts. It helped me gain more confidence because I understood why the WPM was low. Tracking the draft stage also helped me navigate where I was spending my time. For instance, if I was doing nothing but edits all week (which always put me in a bad mood), I recognized that I was either avoiding a writing task or didn’t schedule my edits and rough drafting appropriately. Once I recognized that, I was able to change my sessions to either confront the avoidance or adjust my scheduling, which then helped me move forward with my writing.
Mood
I don’t know if any other platforms will say this, but I think it is necessary to indicate your mood in a tracker. It won’t help you determine how successful a session was, but it may be able to provide insight into if a session was not as productive as usual because you just argued with your spouse, or it may help you recognize when you are pissed off because a project isn’t coming together like you want it to.
Whenever I do tracking, tracking my mood is always a must. I track mood in two ways: overall mood (tracked at the beginning of a session) and mood towards the project (tracked at the end). I use the drop-down functions in Excel to avoid getting too uptight or journaling too much about an incident. Instead, I have common emotion words for how I feel before I write (angry, sad, happy, disgust, fear), and then I put my feelings about the project down after my writing session (progressed nicely, hated it, slow-moving, etc.).
In tracking my mood, I was tracking the human variable, myself, which gave me a much more realistic view of my productivity. I was able to see where and when I was confident, which parts of the story went well for me, and where I may need to invest more time. It was also a check on me to ensure that my writing sessions were enjoyable and not getting steadily worse with no resolution.
Number of Distractions
I can’t be the only writer who struggles with a day full of distractions, right? At first, I tried to time the distractions, but that seemed a bit overkill (and my spouse was not too keen on me timing our conversations when he came to tell me something important). Instead, I did a simple tally of the number of distractions that I had during a writing session. If I had a particularly long distraction, I would often add a new start/stop time because if a distraction lasts long enough, the writing session is essentially two different sessions.
In marking down sessions when I had distractions and comparing them to sessions where I had no distractions, I was much more keen on making sure that my golden hours of the day were as distraction-free as possible. This also helped me open up a line of communication to my spouse and roommates about my “golden hours” for writing, which led me to get a “writer at work” sign to display when I really needed some distraction-free time.
Parting Thoughts
Tracking a writing session can feel like a drag, but tracking certain aspects can always help you gain new insight and likely aid in the productivity of writing sessions. When I first started tracking, I was in the “go big or go home” kind of mood, so I tracked just about everything recommended. However, my advice would be to track only a few items to begin with. Then, as you work, you can keep items that are working and remove or replace items that don’t help your writing sessions become more effective. And don’t be afraid if you take something out just to put it back in—if it helps you further your goals, then removing or adding in a goal shouldn’t feel bad because it’s helping you.
While tracking is very beneficial, I urge writers to use it as a diagnostic tool rather than a measure of progress. Often, I am making great progress with understanding my writing process and yet writing little in my book. If I use the tracker as a measure of success, I am sorely inconsistent. However, if I use it as a diagnostic tool, I can often find out where I am stuck and why without having to spend much time thinking about it. So, I have concluded that tracking items during a writing session is most helpful as a diagnostic tool for improving writing time and space, which will ultimately benefit any writer.
Happy writing everyone!
B.R. Quinn
B.R. Quinn 