Three Truths About Change
(& one reminder that it’s okay)
I’m thinking about change today, as the first quarter of 2026 is nearly past us, and it’s a great time to decide what effect the changes I implemented at the beginning of January have had on my productivity and creativity—and share some advice for anyone trying to implement changes of their own.
At a glance, the major differences I made going from the rhythms of 2025 into the newness of 2026 were these:
Daily word goal went from 1,500 to 1,000, 4 days a week
Thursday’s word goal is only 500 because Thursday mornings are spent volunteering at the local food shelf rather than at my desk
Instead of having a separate tracker for “Blog Writing” versus “Fiction Projects,” I just have one, overall tracker
That’s it. Three changes, which brings me to my first insight.
Change can be incremental.
If you’ve been feeling like your writing routine or creative rhythm is no longer working well for you, don’t scrap all the structure you’ve built for yourself or overhaul the whole system. There are times when those actions are necessary, but, oftentimes, upending everything turns into an overwhelming situation that discourages us, saps our energy, and doesn’t actually speak to whatever the problem is.
I’ve written about this before, but most seasoned writers recommend establishing a writing routine, whatever that looks like for you. The more regular you are, the more progress on your stories you experience. That’s a no-brainer. When it seems like your routine has stagnated you or just doesn’t lend itself to your current season of life anymore, consider tweaking it instead of tearing it down.
You’ll note my first bullet-point is a reduction of my daily word count. It wasn’t that writing five days a week was too much or that having a daily goal was a bad idea; it was that I needed more wiggle room in what I was aiming for. Because there are weeks that begin with great intentions yet get waylaid by life and the unanticipated. Just as there are weeks that are quieter, more focused, and I end up writing beyond what I hoped to.
What are the smaller components that comprise your routine as a whole? Ask yourself: Are all these components still beneficial? If your answer is that more than one component is no longer working, make a list and begin by tweaking just one of them. Give yourself time to adjust to a micro-change, and see if that makes a difference. Based on the results you get, then you can see about attending to something else on your list.
Part of your assessment for change should also adhere to this next point:
2. Change should align with your priorities.
If you’re switching things up in your routine because you’ve been online and saw that so-and-so says you need to be writing 2,000 words a day or that it’s better to write in the early morning or that “real writers” do x, y, and z, you don’t have a good enough reason to implement changes, and you don’t even know if those changes will work for you.
You certainly can test out how it goes aiming for 2,000 words a day and see if that’s a good challenge for you or if you’re consistently hitting a smaller goal. You can see if the early morning is a productive time, but, if it’s not, you don’t have to stick with it. And if you’re listening to someone who tells you what “real writers” do, what you need to try is looking elsewhere for advice.
One of my priorities for 2026 is to volunteer more, which is how I came up with my second bullet-point. I find value in being connected to and giving back to my community, and I didn’t want to put too much on my plate for days I’m at the food shelf. Because I’ve adjusted my goals to accommodate this other important activity, I get home from a morning of volunteering and don’t feel like I’m behind for the day. I don’t feel like I had to “give up” writing time or that I’m pushing myself towards burn-out.
Your priorities may look more like practical responsibilities—like your job or your kids—so how you consider change may be less flexible time-wise. Or priorities may be more about accounting for publishing aspirations, so your routine may be tweaked so that every other week you have a querying session or do market research. Whatever you care about and want to (or need to) dedicate your time to, the changes you make should reflect that.
Now onto my final point for you.
3.Change can be consolidation.
The point of consolidation is to make something stronger, more unified, and more effective. We, as humans, are good at over-complicating things, so it could be that your writing routine has a lot of great pieces—and some of them might be redundant or better executed by combining it with something else.
What this looked like for me was merging my trackers, “Blog Writing” and “Fiction Projects,” to lump into one daily contribution of words instead of two separate ones (as mentioned in my third bullet-point). Last year, it struck me as important to understand how much time I gave to my new blog and how many words that added up to. However, I’d also decided whatever I wrote for my blog didn’t contribute to my daily goal of 1,500 words because I wanted that to be only fiction. This meant there were days I was overly stretched to meet that goal because I needed to create blog content on top of working on my stories, and it only really served as a stressor for me. I definitely think it was a factor as to why I was creatively worn down, by the end of the year.
My approach at consolidation this year has been incredibly helpful for my creative energy. On my tracking spreadsheet, I can still see how many days out of the month I spend on blog work because I have a dedicated place to make a note for each day of what it was I focused on. It’s a simple change that smooshed two pieces of my routine together, and, though it’s simple, it’s made a huge impact on my writing life.
It’s that age-old saying—less is more. Maybe what your routine needs is some paring down, some consolidation. I’m sure you have good ideas or have picked up good tips elsewhere, so it’s not that your structure is wrong or bad. We can just do too much sometimes. We can get very excited about a new idea or have visions of how it could revitalize our writing. Makes me think of another saying I like to tack up to my bulletin board: You can do anything, but you cannot do everything.
Remember, too, that change and understanding how you need it in your life takes time. You must give things space to settle, to play out, to see what kind of an impact it can have. You need to observe yourself to know what your patterns and natural rhythms are. Change doesn’t have to be big or scary, either. It can be simple and small. And sometimes it can be just what we need.
If you have thoughts to share about this topic, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Otherwise, happy writing, friends, and I’ll see you back here next week!