This is a most important pre-writing exercise. This desire is what will fuel your ability to keep on going even when the going gets tough. Review this document any time you feel your motivation sagging. Or, better yet, review it every day.

2. Prune and prioritize. You may have to

Let’s face a couple of facts: 1. Writing a book will take a chunk of time and energy. 2. Your life is already full, and you have no extra time.

Given these two facts, how can you make the time to write the book you have inside your head, the book that’s been calling to you to write for months or even years?

1. First, get in touch with that deep desire within you to write and publish a book. Envision as clearly as you can what it will be like to have a finished, published book in your hands. The title encapsulates just what you want the world to know. You name is on that book. It is bound, with a beautiful cover, and a publisher’s name on the spine, along with your own.

You’re a published author. What is this going to do for you? Win you the respect and admiration of friends, colleagues, and family? Increase your business by your new position as expert? Allow you to approach people you never could before, by sending them your book? Enable you to name a much higher fee the next time you’re asked to speak, and to have something to sell in the back of the room?

Whatever you want from your book, imagine it vividly. Then write it down. This is a most important pre-writing exercise. This desire is what will fuel your ability to keep on going even when the going gets tough. Review this document any time you feel your motivation sagging. Or, better yet, review it every day.

2. Prune and prioritize. You may have to

onths or even years?

1. First, get in touch with that deep desire within you to write and publish a book. Envision as clearly as you can what it will be like to have a finished, published book in your hands. The title encapsulates just what you want the world to know. You name is on that book. It is bound, with a beautiful cover, and a publisher’s name on the spine, along with your own.

You’re a published author. What is this going to do for you? Win you the respect and admiration of friends, colleagues, and family? Increase your business by your new position as expert? Allow you to approach people you never could before, by sending them your book? Enable you to name a much higher fee the next time you’re asked to speak, and to have something to sell in the back of the room?

Whatever you want from your book, imagine it vividly. Then write it down. This is a most important pre-writing exercise. This desire is what will fuel your ability to keep on going even when the going gets tough. Review this document any time you feel your motivation sagging. Or, better yet, review it every day.

2. Prune and prioritize. You may have to

n that book. It is bound, with a beautiful cover, and a publisher’s name on the spine, along with your own.

You’re a published author. What is this going to do for you? Win you the respect and admiration of friends, colleagues, and family? Increase your business by your new position as expert? Allow you to approach people you never could before, by sending them your book? Enable you to name a much higher fee the next time you’re asked to speak, and to have something to sell in the back of the room?

Whatever you want from your book, imagine it vividly. Then write it down. This is a most important pre-writing exercise. This desire is what will fuel your ability to keep on going even when the going gets tough. Review this document any time you feel your motivation sagging. Or, better yet, review it every day.

2. Prune and prioritize. You may have to

xpert? Allow you to approach people you never could before, by sending them your book? Enable you to name a much higher fee the next time you’re asked to speak, and to have something to sell in the back of the room?

Whatever you want from your book, imagine it vividly. Then write it down. This is a most important pre-writing exercise. This desire is what will fuel your ability to keep on going even when the going gets tough. Review this document any time you feel your motivation sagging. Or, better yet, review it every day.

2. Prune and prioritize. You may have to

This is a most important pre-writing exercise. This desire is what will fuel your ability to keep on going even when the going gets tough. Review this document any time you feel your motivation sagging. Or, better yet, review it every day.

2. Prune and prioritize. You may have to make some tough decisions. If your life is already full, what will you cut out in order to harvest the time and energy to write your book?

Look at the chores you already do that take up chunks of time. Can you hire someone to clean your house or do your yard work so you can spend that time writing instead? How much television do you watch? Can you forego that time to write your book? Or can you go to bed earlier and get up earlier and write before you go off to work?

There are lots of great resources for managing time better, from books to audios such as The Time Commandments by "GoalGuru" Jill Koenig.

3. Start out with little blocks of time—and make sure you schedule it. Even 20-30 minutes spent jotting down ideas for your book, or researching, or writing can add up.

Here’s another insider’s tip. The little exercise I’m about to share was key in making me a very productive writer. Set a time to write for 10 minutes, say at 4 p.m. Let nothing stop you from dropping whatever you are doing to sit down and write from 4-4:10. It doesn’t matter what you write; for this exercise, the point is merely to train yourself to write w