Please stop asking me how I 'find the time' to write
It's my job
“How do you find the time to write?” is a question I get asked a lot. I have to admit, I really don’t like being asked it. I didn’t like being asked it in my early twenties, and I don’t like that I’m still asked it.
I’m bored of being asked it, fifteen years later.
Nowadays it also just simply baffles me. As my friend Leyla said: “What a funny thing to ask someone whose living it is to write.”
My job is to write, so I find the time to do it. Like any other job. Asking me ‘how I find the time to write’ is like asking someone how they find the time to go to work.
At an event last year, I was asked this question again at the end of the panel, and I couldn’t hide my annoyance. “I just like doing it, I guess,” I shrugged. I didn’t give a proper answer. I refused to give ‘tips’ or mention the Pomodoro timer or whatever.
My husband was in the audience and he said I looked obviously irritated. “Maybe you need to work on how you respond to it…” he said, gently and kindly. I was irritated by that, too. Because also, I knew he was right.
Why does it irritate me so much?
Maybe because it’s exactly the same as asking someone “how do you find the time for the gym?” or “How do you find time to read so much?” For some weird reason, it sometimes feels like an accusation. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been writing professionally for so long, and yet the question still frames it as though it’s just a hobby.
My friend, Caroline, has a theory. She said the question is annoying because, historically, it’s never really asked of men. Does anyone ever ask male authors this question? Haruki Murakami writes all day long, as did Philip Roth, famously. We seem to accept that they simply have access to time, without questioning it.
And I think she’s right. There’s something revealing in what we assume is “normal” or even admirable in one direction, and slightly suspect in another. The idea of a woman carving out uninterrupted time can still be framed as indulgent, or something that needs explaining, whereas for men it often reads as discipline, seriousness, or even just part of a respected identity. The time itself isn’t the interesting part—it’s the permission we culturally put onto it.
It’s sort of implied that as a woman, shouldn’t you be doing something else, something more useful?? Than finding all this TIME to WRITE?
Someone asked me this question again in an interview recently. The journalist meant well, but again I stewed a little. (I was being interviewed about my latest book. My ninth one.)
I responded to her by saying something about how in my twenties I found the time to write by writing in a café on the weekend alongside other work. I found the time in my lunch break. I found the time on Sunday afternoons. Is that what she wanted? A story about squeezing in time against all the odds?
The truth is, I’ve never ‘squeezed’ it in. I’ve always prioritised it. I write in my journal most days, I tap at my laptop most days.
I “find the time” the same way I find the time to brush my teeth, wash my clothes, take the bins out.
How do you find the time to breathe, is how the question sounded in my head.
When my second book The Multi-Hyphen Method came out in 2018, I went on a UK tour to promote the book. I met hundreds of people interested in the subject matter: how to have a side project, how to hold multiple interests at once, how to leave the corporate grind, how to step outside of society’s ready-made box. One thing came up over and over again:
“I want to do X, but… I don’t have the time.”
Our modern lives are busier than ever, like an overstuffed drawer that won’t shut. Our schedules are full; there are things to do, people to see— and so our deep hopes and desires get pushed to the bottom of the pile. Maybe one day. When I have more time.
It’s a valid thing to say. Maybe you really don't have much time. Maybe you work in the NHS doing night shifts. Maybe you work for the President of the United States. Or maybe you work for Anna Wintour. Maybe you’ve just had a baby that doesn’t ever sleep.
But most of us? The majority? We do have some time. The elephant in the room is: usually “finding time” means sacrificing something else. It means being honest about your screen-time. It means putting your phone down. It means getting up half an hour earlier. It means saying no to that invite from an acquaintance.
“I’ll do it later, when I have more time.” But when will you magically have more time? And: while we’re here, what even is time?
Just think, on other planets, time is different! On Jupiter, a day is roughly 10 hours. On Mars, a year is over 600 days. As per Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity: the stronger the gravity, the slower time passes.
Einstein determined that time is relative—in other words “the rate at which time passes depends on your frame of reference”. Marcus Aurelius once described time as “a river of passing events.” In some tribes, time doesn’t really exist: for example, the Amondawa language has no official word for "time" and don’t label chunks of time i.e don’t use words like ‘month’ or ‘year’. In the Western World, we seem obsessed with categorising our time: thinking ahead, planning, plotting. Ironically, using up heaps of time.
It can feel as though time moves differently sometimes. I don’t really meditate, but I do sit quietly for ten minutes every day. Those ten minutes feel really long. I also sometimes put on a seven minute version of a song and dance to it — that seven minutes feels like ages when I’m just focusing on moving my body. When I’m staring at the microwave for five minutes as it heats up my jacket potato, it feels like an hour. You can make time.
Elizabeth Gilbert said something I always remember in an interview once: that people message her all the time saying they don’t have time to write their book. In which she gently questions how they have the time to write 500 words to her on Facebook, telling her all the reasons they don't have time. 500 words a day is how you write a book.
When we really want something (a dog! An hour at the gym! A spicy one night stand! A new TV!) we move heaven and Earth to make it happen. This is why I think “I don’t have time” when it comes to creative work is often a cover-up. It’s a thing we tell ourselves. It’s the first layer of the onion. It’s a way to shrug something off.
Okay, we “don’t have time” but also deep down: we’re also scared to give it a go. “I would, but I don’t have time” can sometimes be a creative excuse. Something else is lurking. Fear, worry, perfectionism, procrastination, people-pleasing, your inner critic. Call it out.
My favourite desk item is my yellow timer from The School of Life. Fifteen minutes of (seemingly) slow moving sand. I get heaps done. I write my novels in a couple of hours a day. That's all I need. I don't need endless time, I just need a bit, each day.
A friend recently saw a famous astrologer. She said some exciting things about my friend’s career, and that everything is developing with precise timing. She held her hands and said: “You have time.”
She was told to carry on as normal. Patience is hard, in a world of constant rushing. She was told to ‘have faith’ in the unfolding of time.
A friend of mine is a mother of two and at dinner she was tense and frustrated that she doesn’t have more time to write. “Maybe I’m just in my motherhood season, for now. Soon, I’ll be back in my writing season.” After she said those words, she relaxed into her chair, and smiled.
A few summers ago I went on a group retreat to Spain hosted by the wonderful Fiona Arrigo. It was suggested, on the last day, that we take ourselves off with our journal and highlight all the themes that have arisen on the pages over the past week. I got my highlighter pen and I found that everything I highlighted had something to do with time.
Here is something I highlighted, the wise words of Fiona Arrigo: Time is not running out. The thought “there is no time” is a myth.
What if… we do have time?
Funnily enough, going back through my archive, I actually wrote a piece called HOW I MAKE TIME TO WRITE back in 2024. Lol.
For more writing like this… on creativity, time and following your intuition:
