Sunday 15 January 2012

DUMPING AND DELEGATION

No matter how brilliant your time management skills, if you want to make time for writing, it makes sense to offload some of the daily chores that fill the day and sap your energy.

If most of the domestic work falls to you, ask yourself why. Do you sincerely believe that stacking the dishwasher is a woman’s work? Or that parents are genetically conditioned to tidy their teenagers’ bedrooms? Getting other family members to learn some self-maintenance skills is to do them a huge favour.


If you live alone, see if you can cut more corners, and ‘zone’ your chores, doing the bulk of them in one go, and keeping daily jobs like cooking and washing up as simple as possible. (My top tips are: pasta and pesto; using the launderette for a service wash now and then; and not doing the ironing. My partner irons his own shirts, even though he is writing a book himself.)