You’ve made it past the first few months of the semester! How’s it going?

Between your weekly classwork, extracurricular activities, jobs, chores, and developing friendships, it can be hard to make time for writing. Maybe you just don’t have the bandwidth to continue that term paper. Maybe you were two-thirds through an assigned reading, and you were interrupted by a pesky new work deadline. Or, despite having some free time, maybe you lack energy to finish that poem or short story.

Whenever I’m crunched for time, I lean on a practice called the “Daily Minimum.” It allows me to continue pursuing my own interests despite my busy schedule, especially when those interests require internalizing motor or cognitive skills. It’s also been extremely helpful in jumpstarting larger, more intimidating assignments.

What is it? Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like. The Daily Minimum is a compact, customizable daily routine. I’m talking 10-15 minutes—a time slot so unintimidating that there isn’t much of an excuse to not fit it in your day. Surely we can find at least 15 minutes! This short routine is planned in advance and built of the most important tasks necessary to reach a goal.

Last year, I used the Daily Minimum to learn the mandolin and dobro when I was feeling a lack of bandwidth between classes, work, and church responsibilities. Here’s what my Daily Minimum schedule looked like:

• 5 minutes: triad inversions
• 5 minutes: scales in thirds
• 5 minutes: ensemble repertoire

 Applying the Daily Minimum to writing a paper might look something like this:

• 5 minutes: Brainstorm some topics that interest you.
• 5 minutes: Free-write about one of those topics.
• 5 minutes: Find an academic article related to your topic idea.

If you’re having trouble researching a topic, try this Daily Minimum schedule:

• 5 minutes: Brainstorm some key words and search terms.
• 5 minutes: Run them through JSTOR’s search engine.
• 5 minutes: Download three or four PDF sources for later.

And, finally, to jumpstart the editing and revision process, you might try this:

• 5 minutes: Read your essay out loud.
• 5 minutes: Start fine-tuning your intro and first body paragraph.
• 5 minutes: Run your essay through Grammarly.

Quick note: this practice is called a daily minimum for a reason! The hardest part of embarking on any large task is getting started. But I find starting is much like jumping in the pool; though it’s shocking and cold at first, you quickly become used to it. Upon starting, I end up feeling the motivation to far exceed my daily minimum.

The Daily Minimum strategy is surprisingly effective for several reasons. Firstly, neuroscience tells us that muscle memory and cognitive skills are both consolidated and transferred—from short-term memory to long-term—during sleep. Think of it like hitting “save” on your laptop. So rather than dropping the writing project halfway through the semester—and forgetting your train of thought over the course of several weeks—why not leverage your nightly rhythms of rest? Even a seemingly insignificant daily commitment reaps large benefits when your brain has the opportunity to store it night after night.

Secondly, neuroscience tells us that our stress doesn’t only come from doing tasks themselves. Rather, the very act of deciding what to do takes up lots of mental bandwidth. By deciding on a routine ahead of time, we can get in and out of this routine very quickly, and with little mental fuss or debate.

The Daily Minimum works much better than binge-writing with larger dry spells in between. It’s also easier than taking a huge break and forgetting your train of thought right before the dreaded end-of-semester sprint.

I hope you find this tip helpful as we progress into the semester!

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Nico is a SoCal native and guitarist by trade. You may have seen him playing at chapel services and concerts on campus. He graduated from Concordia University Irvine summa cum laude in the Fall of 2020 and was honored to receive the Senior Award for Commercial Music. But if he didn’t pursue music, he probably would’ve ended up a writer! He loves it when, as language and rhetoric are refined, the idea itself ends up strengthened and illuminated in fresh, unexpected ways. His main goal is always to listen well and ask the right questions, informed by his love for teaching (music and Bible, mostly) and 8 years of experience. When he’s not in the Writing Studio, he can be found buried in a book, on a bike, enjoying old-school video games/animation, or working on one of several music projects.