These Stacked Habits Helped Me Build a Six-Figure Writing Business
By: Shaunta Grimes
Tags: Ninjabyob, Habits, Writing, Creativity, Productivity

I have a bunch of little habits surrounding writing.

By little, I mean — ridiculously small.

So small that I feel like they hardly qualify as habits. Except they do. Because when I do them every single day, they add up to a writing career. A good, solid career that is something I could barely have dreamed about five years ago.

This is my writing career:

I am a traditionally published novelist.

I’m one of Medium’s top bloggers.

I run the coolest online writing community there is. (Seriously. The coolest.)

I have an incredible team working with me.

Most important: I haven’t had to have a soul-sucking day job in five years.

I work a lot. Basically, I work all the time, if I’m honest. I love my work. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. But the foundation of my work is this collection of little habits that stack up together to make something bigger than the sum of their parts.

My Habits

I write new words on my work-in-progress novel for 10 minutes a day.

I write those words first thing in the morning.

I make a note to myself about tomorrow’s scene when I’m done today.

I plan my week every Sunday night.

I plan seven blog posts every Sunday night.

I check in with each one of my team members individually at least once a week.

I come up with ten new ideas every night.

None of my habits takes more than twenty minutes at a minimum. Some of them take more, because I have more time. For instance, I usually write for more than ten minutes a day on my novel.

I also talk to my team members more than once a week, but this habit helps me make sure that I meet what feels like an important bare minimum to me.

And like I said, looking at them, they don’t look like much. But together, they’ve been pretty powerful for me.

The best way I know to develop a habit is to attach it to a habit that you already have. For instance, I do my fiction writing as soon as I wake up, before I check my email (which is my habit first thing in the morning.) And I have stacked the habit of writing down what I’m going to write tomorrow right after I’m done writing for the morning.

I do my Sunday night planning right after dinner. And I plan my blog posts right after my overall planning.

I do my idea exercise (thanks James Altucher!) right after my last workshop of the night, at 10 p.m., on nights when I’m working. One nights when I’m not, I do it right after I’m done with whatever work I am doing. It’s my last work thing of the day.

Which habits do you want to create?

The first step is to create your own list of habits. Remember that they should be almost ridiculously small. These are minimums, not maximums. You aren’t setting a timer and making yourself stop when it goes off.

Think about your goals and consider what little habits would work you step-by-step toward them.

I often come up with a new habit when there’s something I want to work on. For instance, writing first thing in the morning is a habit I develop when I have a project that’s difficult for me.

What are your current set habits?

Once you’ve identified your habits, see if they stack with each other. Like my fiction writing habits do.

Write for 10 minutes a day.

Write first thing in the morning.

Write down tomorrow’s scene when I’m done.

See? Pretty, right?

Now, think about the habits you already have. Remember, you want really strong, no-brainer habits.

I’ve stacked my ten-ideas practice with the end of my workday. I’m definitely in the habit of ending my workday eventually. My fiction writing is stacked with my most basic early-morning habit. My Sunday planning is stacked with dinner time.

Try it for a week.

Choose once of your new habits, stack it with one you’ve already developed to the point of never having to think about it, and give it a go for a week.

Just make a commitment to show up for your new habit every day for seven days. You might need to do something to remind yourself. Stick a sticky note somewhere you’ll see it as soon as you’re done with the habit you’re stacking with.

Set up what you need for your habit and keep it handy to the place you’ll do that work. I have a lapdesk and my laptop computer right next to my bed, so it’s super easy for me to just get to work right away.

Reward yourself in some way for a seven day streak. You’re so awesome!

Try it for a month.

How did that first week feel? If it felt pretty good, keep going. Turn it into a 30 day challenge.

If you’re struggling during that month, it’s okay to see if there’s some other habit that would be better to stack your new one with. The goal isn’t to make yourself do something that doesn’t work. It’s to figure out what does.

Try it for a quarter.

You’re on fire! Once you’ve got your 30 day challenge under your belt — just keep going. Extend it to 90 days. You’re already on a roll, so you might as well.

In my experience, 90 days is long enough to see huge results from your little habit. You can easily write 90 to 100 pages 10 minutes at a time in 90 days. You can develop your idea machine. You can create relationships. Seriously, the sky’s the limit.

After 90 days, chances are your habit will be set. You’ll be used to following one habit with another and you won’t have to spend too much time thinking about it.

Try another one.

Go back to your list and pick another habit and do it all over again. One week, one month, one quarter.

You can work on stacking more than one habit at a time, of course. I’m in the middle of a quarter-streak of writing on my current WIP first thing in the morning. I already had the habit of writing ten minutes a day, but not always on fiction. And I wasn’t writing when I woke up.

You could, I suppose, develop all your habits at first. Just know that if it feels overwhelming it’s okay to slow down and just do one at a time. The goal is life-long habits. If it takes you a year or two to get them all in working order, that’s not a big deal.