Assignment: Review your schedule and pick a time to devote to writing. You need to define a start time and end time, and pick a place where you will not be disturbed.

If there is a chance of being disturbed, inform your friends, family or co-workers that you need privacy. Get some headphones if needed. Once you’ve mentally defined this space, actually write out a contract with yourself. ‘I will write at my computer from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. every day.’

Writing things down has a powerful psychological effect, and makes them real to your subconscious in a way simply thinking them does not.

Here's the text from the 5,000 Words Per Hour to give a bit more information on what makes up a Tortoise Enclosure:

Hopefully your first micro-sprint went well, but it will only benefit you long-term if you build a strong foundation. The key to being a successful author is consistency. You need to write every day, preferably at the same time, so your body and mind become trained. You need a writing habit, one that you will practice for the rest of your life. To enable this, you need a time and place where you accomplish your writing. This can mean waking up at 5:00 am every day and sitting on your couch with a laptop. It can mean going to a coffee shop for lunch. How you set it up is entirely up to you, as long as you set it up and follow through.

That’s both easier and harder than it sounds. Just do it works for Nike, but it may not work for you. Don’t worry, though; you’re about to learn the blueprint for building your tortoise enclosure. Wait, your what now?  

About three years ago, I was browsing Reddit and I happened across this video by John Cleese. He explains how to set up a tortoise enclosure, a sacred space where your mind is primed to enter a state of creative flow. He advocates the same consistency I mentioned above, and he warns about the dangers of interruptions. 

I’d recommend taking ten minutes to watch the video, but here’s the process in a nutshell.

Setting Up Your Enclosure

Your tortoise enclosure is more than just a physical location, though that is part of it. It’s a time and place your mind must associate with writing. When you’re there, you write. It’s that simple. This is why I don’t recommend writing in the same space you do other activities. If you watch Netflix or mindlessly surf the web in the same chair where you write, it will be that much harder to buckle down and work when it’s time to work.

If, on the other hand, you unplug your laptop and cart it down to Starbucks at 6:10 every morning, you’re far more likely to develop a habit where you only write while there. I realize that many of you only have one computer and taking it somewhere else may not be possible. If that’s your situation you can still set up an enclosure, but you’re going to have to work a bit harder at it. You’ll need to erect barriers to prevent yourself from indulging in distractions. For example, if you find yourself surfing the web, then use an app like Freedom to block the web during your sprint.

Boundaries of Space

The first thing that defines your tortoise enclosure are physical boundaries. This means walling yourself off from any and all interruptions for the duration of your writing sprint. Turn off your email notifications. Block the web with the Freedom app I mentioned above. If you live with other people tell them you’ll be writing and can’t be disturbed, then close the door to your office. If you live in an area where that’s impossible, then pick a time when everyone else is asleep. However you do it you must eradicate all distractions, because they are absolutely disastrous to the creative process. Every time you tab out of Scrivener or Word to check the internet, every time you answer a phone call or turn around to speak to a family member, you’re setting yourself back to square one, and it will be that much harder to get back into the flow state.

Boundaries of Time

The second thing that defines your tortoise enclosure is time. You need a pre-defined start time and end time, and these times do not necessarily need to correspond with just one sprint. For example, my start time is 6:20 a.m. and my end time is 7:30 am. During that time, I will do two thirty-minute sprints. At the end of the first sprint, I will take ten minutes to surf the web, check email, check Facebook or deal with any other distraction. Then I’m right back at it. This hour and ten minutes is sacred, and my loved ones know that when I am in this space I am not to be interrupted. 

Eat That Frog

 I recommend you set up your writing time as as early as possible. What time do you wake up now? Could you wake up 30 minutes earlier? I know, I know. I’m not a morning person either. I used to hate getting up before the sun. Once upon a time, I worked a 1:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. shift. This meant I wasn’t in bed until midnight and didn’t wake up until 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning. Long after I left that job I was still in the habit of sleeping in for as long as possible. If I had to be at work at 8 I’d get up at 7, and most people I know fall into that habit. 

Then I read a book by Brian Tracy called Eat That Frog. The strange title is a quote from Mark Twain. I’m paraphrasing here, but the basic idea is as follows. If eating a frog is the toughest thing you have to do every day, then you should start with that or that frog will croak at you all day. Do the hardest thing you need to do first thing, because then you know it got done. 

If you wait until you get home from work in the evening to write, it might get done. Or, if you had a particularly brutal day, you might collapse on the couch and binge watch some Game of Thrones instead. It’s easy to let the important things slip when you’re exhausted, but far easier to get them done when you start the day with them.

I used this principle to great effect. It was hard, but I started getting up at 6:30. Once I’d done that for a few weeks and saw what I could get done, I wanted more time, so I started getting up at 6:00. Within a year I’d pushed that back to 5 a.m., even though I didn’t have to be at work until 8:00. This gave me enough time to work out for an hour and write for an hour. I dropped a ton of weight, got in great shape, and published my first novel. The cost? Instead of going to bed at 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. I started going to bed at 9:30. This single change has dramatically impacted my quality of life, and I highly recommend you consider making it.

Do your writing first thing, before the pressures of the day begin to mount. Eat that frog, people.