I don’t know whether to call these sessions or sprints. Sprint fits best, because session is more inclusive of the time where I’m taking a quick read of my last paragraph and getting ready to hit that timer again.
This is likely giving me an inflated WPH count. I say that because my usual method includes that “breathing time” I seem to need between sprints. When I write for 1 hour, I’m including a lot of that breathing time, where my fingers are resting and I’m just staring into space. With these sessions, I’ve made it a point to do as little of that as I can, because I want to hit 200 words in 5 minutes at least once today. :) It’s a goal I have and it’s what keeps me doing session after session.
But this is really working for me. I mean, I might have just discovered one of my best ways of working. I’m so easily distracted when I write that having a 5 minute timer running keeps me super focused in the way a longer timer doesn’t.
I used to do 15 minute sessions, back in June/July 2012. Then I started playing around with things and decided half hour and even one hour sessions gave me better word counts. I never thought of going backward with my times. But it’s doing more for me than most any other session length I’ve ever tried. :)
None of those other session lengths have been able to keep me entirely in the moment the way these 5 minute sessions do. I struggled to reach 250 in 15 or 1000 in 60.
Yet, the lowest count I’ve hit this morning with 5 minutes is 116 words. That’s a pace of 348 in 15 and 1392 in 1 hour. The 5 minute sessions are generating my best word counts per hour of writing since I’ve started tracking them.
My brain seems to love the breaks between 5 minute sessions. It’s really helping me stay focused.
All I have to concentrate on is keeping the length of those breaks under control so I don’t break out of what is likely a flow state for me.
But my brain likes it. ;) So does my muse.