How Swedish Death Cleaning Can Increase Your Productivity as a Writer

by Joy Choquette

Whether you want to publish an ebook, be a successful traditionally published author, or finally finish your memoir, you’ve got a big writing dream. If you struggle with productivity due to disorganization, poor systems, or overwhelm, that dream will be harder to reach.

You have a lot on your plate. Most writers are balancing day jobs with their writing, along with family commitments, volunteering, household chores and errands, and a myriad of other tasks that demand your attention.

First, let’s assess where you are. Then we’ll create a simple, easy-to-implement plan to get you where you want to be.

A) Assess: Finding Motivation, Time, and Space

Let’s start with a fun activity.

1. What Do You Love About Writing?

Pull out a pad of paper and set a timer for 10 to 15minutes. As fast as you can, list everything you love about your writing practice. Your list might include everything from “self-expression” and “connecting with others” to “being challenged”.

2. What Don’t You Love About Writing?

Next, reset the timer. This time, list everything you hate about your writing practice as it’s currently functioning. Your list might include things like, “never enough time,” or “hate social media,” or “constant need to find new readers”.

3. What Change Would Have the Biggest Impact?

Finally, set the timer one last time, and on a third sheet of paper, answer this question: “What one change in my writing process would have the greatest impact?” Write down every answer that comes to mind without judgment. After the timer has gone off, circle the response that feels truest deep down for you.

4. Review and Reflect

If you have time now, re-read all your responses. If not, schedule time in your schedule to do it on a specific date/time. As you read, make a note of anything that strikes you. Are you surprised by any of your answers? Is your “hate” list longer than your “love” list? Not to worry, that doesn’t say anything about you as a writer. It’s more reflective of your level of frustration.

Make notes about anything that surprises you or resonates with you. We’ll come back to these later.

Where Are You Spending Your Time?

Next, pull out your calendar or day planner—wherever you keep your schedule. Look at it carefully to see where you might have some downtime. Lunch break at work? Your commute on the bus or train? Early on Saturday mornings? Make a list of any free time that’s available.

Additionally, consider keeping a time log for one week. These can often be eye-opening. We often think we’re “just popping onto social media” for a minute or two, but our phone’s screen usage chart says otherwise. Likewise, laying in bed occasionally is a luxurious treat. But what if we gave up two lounging/snoozing sessions a week?

Look for any pockets of time that you might otherwise discount. Even ten or fifteen minutes are helpful, so find and list all the chunks of time that you can.

How to Use Death Cleaning to Improve Writing Productivity

In her popular book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, author Margareta Magnusson discusses the seemingly odd and slightly morbid practice of “death cleaning”. She guides readers through an age-old process that many Swedes partake in which involves clearing out, letting go, and keeping only what is significant before their deaths.

To keep things simple and easy to manage, we’ll focus on just three of the principles Magnusson talks about to improve our writing practice.

1. Assess
2. Clear
3. Reflect

You already completed the “assess” step above, so now we’ll move on to “clear.”

B) Clear: Clearing the Clutter in Your Writing Practice

1. Where Do You Have Free Blocks of Time?

The first step is to take a good look at the blocks of time you unearthed in the last exercise. Do you see a pattern emerging? Popular self-help gurus are always telling us to “get up earlier” but that might not work for you. I already get up at 5 and am not willing to drag myself out of bed earlier than that!

Using a trial-and-error mindset, practice writing during these free chunks of time. One of the biggest lies that most writers believe is that you MUST have long periods available to write. I’ve written and published nine novels (so far) and have written most of these in fifteen-minute chunks of time. It is not only do-able but also easier than stressing out about not having hours to dedicate to your craft.

2. What Activities Can You Delete or Cut Back On?

If you literally cannot find any free time to write, then it’s time to go deeper. Are there volunteer activities you could step down from? Do you have to transport your kids to school daily or could they ride the bus instead?

How much TV are you watching? Getting together with friends and family is fun and important. But are the twice-weekly dinners or drinks out essential? Maybe you could go once a week or once a month.

Only you can decide what to step back from to free up more time for your writing, but I encourage you to do so.

3. Is Social Media Taking Up Too Much Time?

But wait—along with decluttering your schedule to fit in more writing time, there’s more to let go of. Consider taking a fast from social media. Think long and hard about the amount of research you’re doing for your writing project versus actual writing. How much time and attention are you spending following the blogs of industry leaders, literary agents, or other authors?

There’s an important distinction between intake of information and output of creative effort. The first is much easier, which is why so many creatives get bogged down in the weeds and never reach the goals they set for themselves.

If you’re struggling to let go of any of these things (social media, reading industry news, researching) then consider at the very least putting boundaries around them using time limits. Otherwise, it’s much too easy to “never have time” to write.

C) Reflect: What to Keep and What to Let Go of in Your Writing Practice

Now on to the third step in our death-cleaning process: Reflect.

Compassion is where we need to begin. First, let’s acknowledge that writing is hard and often scary. While we feel good after we write, the actual writing process isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. It allows our inner critic out of its cage and that can be a very unpleasant experience. Writing takes courage more than discipline, and small, easy-to-manage steps rather than giant leaps.

Begin by reminding yourself how important this writing dream is to you. Close your eyes and picture your book with its beautiful cover in your hands. Spend a little time fantasizing about discussing the book with contented readers at a book club.

Second, set aside a little time and look at your schedule. Once you’ve found those pockets of time from the Clear phase, you’re ready to reflect.

Pulling out your list from the Assess phase, review what surprised or resonated with you. Find ways to add more of what you love about your writing practice into your life and remove more of what drains you.

You might decide to let go of social media, even if temporarily. Maybe it’s okay to let yourself off the hook for this upcoming conference so you can focus on making a handful of meaningful connections with other writers, authors, and agents. If researching is something you dread but need to do, find ways to make it less painful. Perhaps you could set hourly limits on the research, hire someone to do preliminary research or exchange services with another writer who loves researching.

There are as many solutions as there are problems, often even more. Remember, just because you feel like you’re drowning in writer-related problems doesn’t mean there isn’t a life raft nearby, ready to help. All it takes is some time and courage to really face what isn’t working and make a plan to find something that does.

Moving Forward and Maintaining Momentum in Your Writing

After implementing the Clear, Assess, and Reflect steps, your writing time should look vastly different.

You sit down to write. You feel refreshed, excited, and hopeful. Even if you only have a fifteen or twenty-minute chunk of time, you’re grateful for it. Having left yourself some notes at the end of your last writing session, you can quickly dive back into the story.

Because you shut off all notifications, you work uninterrupted. You’re fully immersed in bringing your story to life, without the outside input of any “experts” or gurus who claim to have the answer you need.

The truth is the answer has been inside of you all along. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, you just had to realize it to make it come alive.

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J.P. Choquette writes supernatural thrillers and coaches writers to meet their goals. She lives in northern Vermont where she enjoys spending time in the woods with her family, sipping hot beverages, and imagining she lives in a mansion with a secret door.

Visit J.P.’s website, or her YouTube channel where she posts helpful writing videos.  You can also connect with her on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Read her other post on Writing and Wellness here.