Are you feeling overwhelmed in your writing life?
It’s a common feeling for most of us. I’ve found a way of thinking about it, though, that has proven helpful.
Turns out, it’s all about managing the eggs in your baskets!
The Writing Life Balancing Act: Juggling Eggs
I grew up on a 10-acre ranch. We had just about every domesticated animal you can imagine, including chickens. With four kids in the family and often four foster kids as well, there were a lot of mouths to feed. Having our own eggs was helpful for the family budget.
I was frequently tasked with collecting the eggs from the chickens. There were times when we had a lot of laying hens, which translated into a lot of eggs. Even with all the kids to feed, I would often take some to the neighbor just so they wouldn’t go to waste.
Collecting that many eggs could be challenging. Put too many in one basket and you risked breaking some on the bottom because of the weight of those on the top. Or they could bang against each other as you walked from the barnyard to the house, whereupon you’d have a yolky mess in the bottom of the basket.
Taking an extra basket or two helped. But then you had to be sure you could manage whatever baskets you carried while they had eggs in them. One stub of a toe and splat, there went all the eggs.
What does this have to do with writing?
Applying the Basket Theory to Writing
Imagine that each aspect of writing has its own basket. For example:
- Idea generation
- Daily writing
- Editing and polishing
- Publishing
- Platform building
- Book marketing
Within each of these baskets, you have a varying amount of eggs. During a book launch, for instance, you may have more eggs than usual in your book marketing basket. These might include:
- Giving podcast interviews
- Writing guest posts
- Holding signings and in-person presentations
- Scheduling and managing book promotions
- Creating graphics to feature on various social media platforms
- Sending thank you notes and books to blurb writers
- Creating and giving away book swag
- Updating your website and Amazon book page with blurbs and editorial reviews
That’s a lot of eggs in one basket. To properly balance it, you may have to put some of those eggs into a second basket, which requires setting one of your other writing baskets down.
You might have a period of time, for instance, where you can’t get to your daily writing. Often, when something like that happens, our default response is to feel guilty about it. But with this system, it’s about prioritizing without guilt.
For a few weeks, your attention has to be on the book launch. Before long, you’ll be able to lighten the load in that basket and then pick up your daily writing basket again.
Baskets We Too Often Neglect in the Writing Life
Beyond the writing and publishing baskets lie those we need to pick up now and then to sustain our writing selves. Neglect them too long, and burnout looms.
- Self-care: Daily exercise to keep our bodies and minds in shape. Eating a healthy diet to do the same.
- Inspiration and motivation: Scheduling those things that inspire our creativity and motivate us to go after that next writing goal.
- Education and self-growth: Investing in books, workshops, conferences, and more so that we can continue to learn and keep up with the ever-changing publishing industry.
- Downtime and relaxation: Getting away to restore ourselves and refill the well of creativity.
You may need to put your platform-building basket down, for instance, to give yourself a chance to carry your “inspiration and motivation” basket for a while. Then you can put that one down and pick up your education and self-growth basket as you spend a weekend at a restorative conference.
These are things most writers do, but we often feel guilty doing them, as if somehow our other baskets will self-destruct if we put them down.
Life Will Make You Drop Some of Your Baskets
Life extends beyond writing: earning, family, health, and community are the non-negotiables that occasionally demand all our attention.
- Earning money: Keeping a roof over our heads.
- Family: Attending to our family and loved ones.
- Community: Doing those tasks we do to be part of our communities.
- Home care: Managing all the errands of life, from mowing the lawn to getting the groceries to having the car fixed.
- Hobbies: Engaging in other activities that inspire and energize us.
- Health: Addressing any health concerns that come up.
Most of the time, we manage to balance these baskets along with everything else we’re doing. But sometimes, these baskets make us drop (or set down) our other baskets, whether we want to or not.
If you have a sudden health crisis, for example, it may require you to drop most of your other baskets to tend to it. If someone in your family requires assistance, that may demand the same sort of focus.
The key is to realize when you must set most of your baskets down—without guilt. We have to make peace with it when this happens, knowing that we will return to our other baskets when the crisis is over.
Managing the Many Baskets In Your Writing Life: Avoiding Overload
Imagine you have a good friend standing next to you. She’s holding five baskets, each with a moderate level of eggs in them. You start by adding more eggs to each basket. They feel heavier, but she manages to hold onto them without breaking them.
Then, as she’s walking very carefully from the barnyard down to the house, you begin to add one basket and another and another to her load. You tell her she needs to continue to carry all the baskets without breaking the eggs.
She does her best. She’s got five baskets, then six, then seven, then eight. She has looped some over her arms and when you give her a ninth, she holds that one in her teeth.
And she keeps walking.
You know what’s going to happen. Eventually, she’s going to drop one or more of the baskets. Then she’s going to feel bad about all those lost eggs. She may even feel like she failed. How dare she not be able to manage all those baskets!
Be honest—does that sound like you as a writer?
The Power of Choice: Intentional Basket Management
We are not superhuman. We can only carry so many baskets with so many eggs in each at a time.
When you start to feel overloaded, ask yourself: “Which basket can I set down for now?” Or, “Which eggs can I take out of this basket for now?” Know that you can always come back and pick up those eggs and baskets again when you’re ready.
Doing this purposely and thoughtfully will help you to choose where you put your focus at any one time. No matter how busy you are, if you feel in control, you are much less likely to feel overwhelmed or stressed out.
Manage your baskets wisely, and avoid feeling scrambled. That’s the recipe for a sustainable writing life.
Photo by Caroline Attwood on Unsplash.