Weekend Writing Inspiration: 7 Creative Strategies to Survive ‘Distance Learning’ and Keep Writing this Fall

With many school districts here in the U.S. planning to open this fall with “full distance” or “hybrid” learning in short order, many writer-parents are anxiously wondering how to keep working their day jobs — let alone keep writing and preserve our well-being — on top of being full-time educators. (And even if you’re not in the U.S., let’s face it: writing and parenting always require creative planning to pull off, so hopefully, this is useful to you, too.)

As someone who has been working from home since 2002 (I’ve kept my business running through my two boys’ early childhoods; they’re now 6 and 12), I’ve come into this situation knowing firsthand how frustrating it can be to try to eke out time and space for work and writing in the midst of taking care of children. And managing distance learning only complicates the care.

Having said that, I also know it’s possible to continue to write, even when pressed for time, energy, and mental bandwidth.

Let me share with you a few things I’ve learned over the years.

First, a caveat: Even with educational changes as a common baseline, each of us is in a specific, unique-to-us situation. “Parenting” runs the gamut of life experience: single parenting, parenting with a partner; parenting with inflexible work schedules, parenting with flexible work schedules, having childcare support, not having childcare support; or parenting kids of different ages, needs or temperaments, etc. The permutations are endless.

As always, therefore, take from these ideas what best serves you, and ignore the rest.

Here are seven strategies to help you survive distance learning and keep writing this fall:  Click here to read more