I have written and revised seven novels, and for the majority of them, I was either a full-time student, working full-time, or doing school while working full-time. I’ve written my books in the wee hours of the night, early mornings, and during the breaks between other commitments.

Whether you’re juggling undergrad, pursuing a Master’s degree, working a demanding 9-5 — or some combination of the above — you’ll know that it’s incredibly hard to find the time to write novels in the midst of everything else you’ve got going on. But you can do it. Here are some tips for how to juggle novel-writing with full-time school or work.

1. Make a schedule

I’m a Google calendar girlie, a to-do list fiend. I pair my digital calendar with a to-do list in Notion, but I know people who make their schedules in other apps or long-hand. It doesn’t really matter how you formulate the day, just that you do.

For me, making a schedule is helpful because it allows me to temper my expectations. It’s easy to wake up in the morning and plan to write 6,000 words, but a lot harder to actually fit those words in around all my other responsibilities, including my job. So the schedule tells me what hours I need to dedicate to work, to my social life, to self-care, and then I can see how much time I have left and make an accurate writing plan.

2. Be gentle with yourself

This is more of an emotional tip than a practical one, but it’s so important I want to drop it near the top of this list. Like I mentioned above, it’s easy to dream big and plan to hit incredibly high word count goals; it’s a lot harder to actually achieve those numbers. When I inevitably don’t meet the ridiculous goals I’ve set for myself, I practice self-forgiveness.

This is difficult for me, especially because I spent the first 28 years of my life practicing self-loathing with everything in me. It’s so much easier to mentally berate myself and beat myself up over my perceived failures, but the truth is, that accomplishes nothing. All it does is make me less likely to want to write the next day. Forgiving myself allows me to wake up in the mornings, dream big again, and know that if I don’t make it, I’ve always got tomorrow.

3. Always budget extra time

Whether your deadline is self-imposed or set by an agent or editor, it’s important to account for days when you won’t write, when you’ll write fewer words than needed, or when emergencies arise — like a big school or work project.

The way I do this is by allowing a couple of “empty” days at the end of my drafting period. This means when I calculate how many words I need to write per day to meet the deadline, I discount the last two days. It leaves me some breathing room. You can do this however works for your brain; but I do firmly believe that giving yourself wriggle room on a deadline is crucial when you have other hefty demands on your time.

4. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize

This step is always the hardest for me. Prioritization, bane of my existence! It feels bad to put one thing over another, whether that’s planning to stay in and write on a Friday night instead of partying with your friends, or deciding to study instead of diving into the world of your book.

But the truth is life is all about prioritization. If you want to write novels while you’re in school or working full-time, you will have to prioritize, and sometimes that means making sacrifices. I can’t tell you what or how to prioritize; like I said, there may be days when writing takes priority, but there may be days when other things do.

5. Learn to write in the margins

I am admittedly not the best at this, because I’m in the habit of only writing when I have at least 30 minutes of free time. That said, writing can be done in small chunks whenever you have a break. It’s a muscle we need to train like any other, that of writing in the margins, but it’s so worthwhile when you’ve got a lot on your plate.

An example of this might be writing between meetings or classes. If you’re mid-scene or mid-chapter when you have to pause, take a second to jot down a phrase or two about where you’re going next in the story, so when you have time to pick it up again, you know exactly where you’re going.

6. Your phone is your best friend

When you’re running ragged from class to class, and you have maybe a spare 15 minutes; or you have a long commute to and from work on a train; that’s when your phone is your best friend. Google docs, the Notes app, and several writing programs all have cross-device functionality and sharing, so you can write on your phone, laptop, tablet, etc, and back it all up to the cloud.

This doesn’t always mean actively drafting, but recognizing that you can pull out your phone to jot down brainstorming ideas or epiphanies.

7. Know that it might take more time

Listen, I hate this part. I hate that because I don’t earn money from my writing, I have a day job that takes time and mental energy and keeps me from my stories for hours at a time. I know I could write books so much faster, edit them quicker, have them ready to go out into the world sooner, if I didn’t have other demands on my time.

But reconciling yourself with the reality that being a full-time employee, or a full-time student, means writing takes longer will do wonders for your mental health. It’s part of the “be gentle with yourself” advice, too.

It will happen. It just might take a bit more time. And there may be periods in your life where you don’t write at all, and that’s okay. Writing isn’t going anywhere. Your stories aren’t going to disappear into the ether. They’ll be there, waiting for you, when you have time for them.