Making The Most Of My Lunch Break As A Writer With A Day Job

When you're balancing your writing with a day job, it's important to embrace those short windows of downtime. I do a fair bit of my writing during my lunch break. Even though I've only got 30 minutes during a standard shift, I can get a fair bit of writing stuff done in that time.

It's all a matter of your approach and staying focused on small, achievable goals.

Here are a few ways I make the most of my lunch break writing sessions, no matter what I'm working on that day.

Have A Plan

Time spent deliberating over what to work on means less time to work on it. And, chances are, your lunch break is pretty limited as it is.

Have an idea of what you want to focus on. For me, that tends to be blog posts because I find they're easier to work on in shorter bursts.

Where I currently work, my allotted lunch break is thirty minutes for a standard shift. But if I happen to be scheduled ten or more hours, I'm given a full hour. Those are the days I'm definitely bringing my laptop or NEO2 with plans to work on a fiction project; these days, it's typing up a handwritten draft or transferring edits from a printout to the digital draft.

Your plans don't have to be concrete, but it does help to have some sort of objective.

Set Bite-Sized Goals.

Speaking of making plans, it's important to be realistic when making them.

You can get plenty done in thirty minutes, but you can't get everything done. Focusing on bite-sized goals, such as a writing sprint instead of drafting an entire chapter of your WIP, lends itself to a more fulfilling sense of accomplishment as opposed to feeling like you've barely made a dent.

One reason I opt to work on blog posts during a standard lunch break is that they're easy to break down into smaller chunks. I might aim to draft one or two segments of a larger post or do a quick proofread of a nearly-finished one.

It's more contained and precise than saying I'm going to finish a scene, which, suffice it to say, ends when it ends.

Quantifiable, small goals are the way to go for lunch break writing sessions.

Headphones are a MUST!

I work in a fast-paced, loud environment. Between the escape room itself and the mall it's in (which is inside of an even louder casino), it can be next to impossible to focus sometimes—especially during the summer months or holiday breaks.

Headphones are a must-have for my lunch break. I usually have an instrumental compilation playing to drown out distractions.

Even if I don't have music playing, popping my earbuds helps me stay in the zone. Sometimes, I even bring a set of larger headphones that aren't connected to anything to act as a visual queue that I'm trying to focus (a little tip from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, btw).

Phone Screen Down

Lunch break writing sessions are short, so it's important to minimize distractions.

Since I use my phone as my timer and for music, I hesitate to put it away entirely. However, I am making it more of a point to keep it screen-down during my lunch break if I'm intent on writing. It's just one less distraction to worry about.

Writing Isn't Just Writing

You may want to bring your writing gear to your day job. It could come down to the logistics of it, fear of leaving something back at the office, or wanting to maintain a clear boundary between your work life and your writing life.

There is plenty of writing-related stuff you can do away from your writing homebase.

Writing isn't just the act of writing or editing. You can use your lunch break for writing-adjacent activities like reading, listening to a writing-centric podcast or YouTube channel, engaging with other writers on social media, making your writing plans for your next day off, researching literary agents if you're getting ready to query your manuscript, or staying on top of publishing news.

Your lunch break can become an opportune time for tasks related to writing or your WIP, even when you're away from it.

Remember That It's A Lunch Break

I'm one of those people who will forget to eat if I'm totally absorbed in what I'm working on. But here's the deal: your lunch break is, for all intents and purposes, a lunch break. Not a writing break.

Remember to actually eat during your lunch break. It's more important to nourish yourself than it is to try and cram in another three hundred words.

Taking care of yourself makes it easier to take care of your writing.

Do you do any writing-related activities on your lunch break? Leave your best tips in the comments!