Strength and conditioning coach Dan Johns has a theory about which group is most successful when it comes to actual results. It would seem that the most successful trainers, by far, in his experience, are those people who have been incarcerated. That’s right: those people who’ve been locked up in prison. Despite the fact that the conditions they train under are less than ideal, their diet is often counter to what would be optimal for their goals and that they don’t have access to the best supplements, yet still they are the most successful group he has worked with.


And the reason for their success is simple: consistency. They don’t have any distractions. They can focus absolutely on the task at hand and so they keep at it until they’ve achieved their goals, whatever they might be.

I thought about this when author and former MP Jeffrey Archer was sent to prison a few years ago. I was, in a strange way, quite envious. He was going to have several years where he would be able to devote himself to writing full time. Often, when you’re bringing up children, looking after an elderly relative, studying or working a range of different jobs, you’d give anything for just a few hours of uninterrupted silence.

And that’s the challenge. You have to find the time to do the work and you have to do it on a regular basis. Otherwise, you’re simply fooling yourself. Every New Year someone posits the idea that if you wrote a page a day for a year you’d end up with a book at the end of it. It’s a great idea although not particularly practical. Real life doesn’t tend to work like that.

It’s really difficult to maintain focus over such a long period of time. We tend to get distracted by all the other concerns vying for our attention. Chances are that you’ll give up, get bored or simply switch to a ‘better’ idea. That’s just human nature.

Determination is a limited commodity. We only have so much of it and, once it’s gone, we struggle even to cover the basics. Anyone who has stuck to a diet for more than a month will tell you the same thing. The mind gets bored with the restrictions placed upon it and starts to look for ways to circumvent them.

I find that the best way to approach writing is to be professional about it. Commit to an agreed amount of time in terms of daily application in order to limit how long it takes to complete your first draft. An hour is the least amount of time that you can give over and still expect reasonable results. If the writing is going well on one particular day then of course you can work for longer but – and this is the important bit – you have to stay in the chair for that hour.

Once you’ve completed your first draft then you’re going to have a solid idea of what you’re dealing with and so you’re less likely to give up. You can then cut, edit and re-write as you see fit. It’s much easier to give up on a book that’s only half written.

Others like to set themselves a minimum daily word count. Make sure that the number is attainable for you. You’re not going to write 5,000 words after a hard day at work when you still have the shopping to do before you have to pick the kids up from soccer practice. Settle on a reasonable number and then share it with your friends and loved ones. Be conservative in your initial estimate in order to ensure that it’s sustainable over the long term. Then record how much you’ve written in each session. You can use a note-book but some people prefer using a white-board because it’s more visual. There’s nothing quite like seeing your word-count going up every day to inspire you. A minimum allotted time or word count will keep you honest and it’s the best way that I’ve found of getting the work done.