3 Tiny Writing Rules: The Secret Sauce of Writing Habits

Today we’re talking about Tiny Writing rules. Now, I know no one is a fan of rules.

Well, that’s not true, my upholder friends like rules. And my obligor friends depend on them. Check out Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies if you don’t know what I’m talking about. I should tell you right now that I am kinds of a personality test geek. I’ve always been fascinated by why people act the way they do and how we can use their natural inclinations to encourage certain behaviors. I’ve subscribed to all of them at one point or another. Right now my favorites are The Four Tendencies and the Enneagram.

Upholders are rule followers. They follow both societal expectations (aka the Tiny Writing rules) and their own internal expectations (so I probably don’t have too many upholders here. Unless you’re just fascinated by the idea of a new writing system or self-discovery process, you don’t need me or Tiny Writing rules to help you establish a writing habit..

Obligors also like rules, because the pressure to conform to societal expectations is what motivates them. There probably are quite a few obligors reading this and following along. If you want to join the Tiny Writing Tribe just fill out the form at the bottom of the page. Obligors don’t do so well at meeting their expectations. They need outside accountability.

Rebels don’t like rules period. And questioners don’t like arbitrary rules. I’m a questioner. For sure. And so you can rest assured that these Tiny Writing rules are not arbitrary. I’ve created them only after lots of experimentation and careful thought. These rules are designed to help you succeed with establishing a writing habit.

The Tiny Writing Rules

1. Write every day for 30 consecutive days.
2. Write for 20 minutes a day. And only 20 minutes a day.
3. Be as honest as possible in your writing.

That’s it. Three rules. Pretty simple. Right?

In case I have any questioners out there, I’ll give you a little bit of background on each of the rules.

Tiny Writing Rule #1

It takes somewhere between 21-66 days to establish a new habit. The harder the habit, the longer it takes.

I picked 30 days because it’s doable. It’s easily measurable. If you want to start on the first day of the month, you’ll be wrapping up the project on the last day of the month. (You don’t have to start on the first day of the month. Or even the first day of the week. You can start whenever you want.) And our brains already think in monthly time frames. So 30 days is something the human brain can understand.

Be honest, if I told you this was a 66-day project would you still be reading? Yeah. I didn’t think so.

But, in the interest of full disclosure, the idea is to establish a habit. So after the 30 days are up, you still have to keep writing. Well, you don’t have to. But if you want to be a writer you do.

Tiny Writing Rule #2

You write for twenty minutes a day. Every day.

No less. No more.

Twenty minutes is enough time to get past the trivial and mundane thoughts and dig deeper into your honest thoughts, feelings, and motivations. It’s short enough to be manageable. But long enough that you have to plan for it.

And you should plan for it. The key to making any of these Tiny Writing rules stick is to schedule the writing time into your day. For the next 30 days, set aside 20 minutes each day to write. Ideally, it will be at the same time each day. But that’s up to you and your schedule. When I did my first 100-day book project I taught Pilates at 5:30 a.m. two mornings a week. My writing time was in the morning before the rest of my day started. But those two days I pushed it back until after Pilates, because I wasn’t getting p at 3 a.m. to write.

Know yourself. Do what makes sense for you. And pick a time that will make it easy to be successful.

The second half of this rule is just as important as the first. When the time is up (I do recommend setting a timer), stop writing. Even if you are in the middle of a thought.

This is important for two reasons. One, it keeps the task manageable. If you set aside twenty minutes to write and find you keep going over by twenty or thirty minutes your writing will likely eat unto other tasks you had scheduled. You might be late starting dinner or leaving for work. You might let the laundry pile up or forget to pick your kid from soccer. And you will feel stressed and have negative associations with writing.

I want this to be a positive experience. I want you to love writing. I want you to want to write more. After the 30 days are up you can write more. I promise. We’ll talk about that next week.

The second reason a time limit is important is that I want you to learn to be efficient with your time. Writing time is for writing. Not for thinking about writing. Or scrolling Instagram. Or sending emails. Or getting your child a snack. This is your time to write.

If you are going to be a writer, you need to be disciplined to write during writing time.

Tiny Writing Rule #3

The whole point of Tiny Writing is to help you discover why you want to make time for writing in the first place.

Maybe it’s because you want to write a novel. Or you want to write a nonfiction book that establishes you as a thought leader. Maybe you want to exercise your creativity. Or maybe you want to make some extra money. Maybe you want to share your ideas with the world. Or maybe you just want to explore your emotions.

You don’t have to want to be a professional writer to cultivate a daily writing habit. One client I worked with is a doctor. And she wanted to establish a writing habit to decompress after work and be ready for mom-mode when she gets home. She doesn’t want to make a dime off writing, but writing is still important to her. Another client started an online business selling inspirational t-shirts and accessories. She loved her new job but found it was taking up all her time. Between that and her three young kids, she had no time to explore her faith. She wanted to establish a daily writing habit to explore the Bible.

What you why is doesn’t matter. But you need to know what it is.

The only way you can truly uncover why you want to write is, to be honest as you work your way through the questions. This might be difficult at first. But the more you do it, the easier it will become. Trust yourself.

And remember, no one else will ever see these answers. Unless you want them to. Tiny Writing is only for you.

Why Aren’t There More Tiny Writing Rules?

I kept the rules simple because I am a questioner. I don’t like arbitrary rules. And I’m not going to create them for you.

I don’t care when you write, where. you write, or how you write.

Prefer to write in a notebook? Great. Like a fancy journal? Good for you. Want to write on your phone? That’s convenient. Are you a laptop all the way kind of writer. Awesome. So am I.

You don’t need leather-bound journals or fancy pens. You don’t need a library lamp and writing desk. None of that stuff matters.

You can find research to support writing by hand. That’s great–if you will actually do it. And your handwriting is legible. And if you are efficient that way. When I tried to write by hand I failed. Every single time. But as soon as I started writing on my laptop I found success.

I can type much faster than I can write. And I can always read it when I go back later. I’ve got a drawer full of pretty journals (when people know you’re a writer they like to give you paper 🤣). I sometimes use them to outline novels and to keep track of ideas. (Although there are apps I like for those things too). But I don’t write in them.

Where and how you write is so much less important than the fact you just do it.

So that’s it. Three simple Tiny Writing Rules.

If you haven’t already go back and check out Tiny Writing Can Yield Big Results and Getting Started with Tiny Writing. And then be sure to sign up for the Tiny Writing Tribe to get the 30 prompts delivered to your inbox.

Happy Writing!