How I Built A Micro-Retreat
For Low-Resource Years
In 2023 I created, funded, and DID my very own writing retreat and it went so well that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t done it before.
This year, one of my goals was to do it again. I started thinking about it in the spring— I toyed with the idea of spending a long weekend up the shore in an airbnb, staring at the massive lake while I wrote genius ideas down.
If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that this year hasn’t bestowed the gifts of paid time off, a steady salary, and most tragically, a nearby Amtrak line. By September I started thinking about a micro, single-day retreat that still allotted me a condensed amount of time and maybe even a fresh location, but didn’t mean calling out of work or spending the $597.80 I spent on my four-day retreat in 2023.
Location, Location, Location:
I started by researching hours that coffee shops are open and found several that looked promising but ultimately decided I didn’t love the idea of spending that long working in a public place and was likely to be more caffeinated than productive.
My library (like many of them! Check yours out!) has small study spaces that are free, and meeting rooms you can rent for a price that’s laughably low if you’re familiar with going rates for space rentals. While I’m being cautious with my finances these days, I also know the psychological value that putting money towards something has for me, and I considered spending the $50 to reserve one of the library study rooms for 8 hours.
Ultimately, I did not do that because I couldn’t find a date that worked with my schedule and it was becoming a procrastination tool. I had “Writing Retreat?” In my calendar for months and kicked it down the road every week for three months until I finally committed to doing it from my home office.
What I Worked On:
It took me a while to figure out content for this amount of time. A single day seems like way too much for some things and not nearly enough for others. Some ideas that didn’t make the cut:
A Substack-focused retreat. I’ve been considering a second Substack of monthly interviews with artists, but I have a lot of projects in the mix right now and that one needs a lot of fleshing out.
A [REDACTED]-focused retreat. I have a top secret something that is largely writing based and also community based in the works, but I have a regular work cadence for it and it’s too sprawling for a time I wanted to spend singularly focused.
A short-humor retreat. I may come back to this idea. The content fit the container— short humor in a short timeframe. I could re-read some old favorites and think about them from a technical perspective, generate new ideas, and work on some hibernating pieces. A kind of self-guided intensive.
What I ended up focusing on was a relatively new idea given to me by a Sagittarius Queen named Ashley (if you don’t have a Sagittarius Queen named Ashley in your life, I can’t recommend it enough), who suggested a theme for an essay collection that had been sitting in front of my face for years. I decided to start on a book proposal, given that I have some content for it and despite never writing a book, have taken Caitlin Kunkel’s book proposal class TWICE because it was that good (and letting stuff marinate for three years and coming back to it was golden).
As I did last year, I created three goals:
Ultimate dream accomplishment: Outline the proposal and make a list of all the things I need to gather. Pick and polish a few writing samples.
A reasonable expectation of what I can expect to accomplish given the time, space, and human allotted to do the work: Outline a book proposal & make a list of things I need to complete it.
A bare minimum that I want to get accomplished: Start a book proposal.
How I prepped:
I wanted to keep most of the work confined to a single day, but I knew some planning would set me up for success. Here’s what I did a day or two before:
Planned my meals so I didn’t have to spend time in front of the fridge or wandering to the grocery store: Very gourmet rice & egg for breakfast and leftover tofu and noodles for lunch.
The night before, I printed out all my materials from the book proposal class and set them on my desk.
Cleaned my desk.
Hid my social media apps from my muscle memory. This just meant hiding them from my home screen.
How I protected this time (from myself):
Because I decided to do this in my home, distractions run rampant. Not a work from home day goes by where I don’t do a load of laundry, compose a new song for my cat, or stare at my phone every time I go to the bathroom. Not on retreat day! Here’s how I protected my time from my worst saboteur (moi).
I kicked off the day with a virtual, recurring co-working date I keep with a friend and used our time together to make an outline for the day.
My phone and my computer remained on dnd for the entire time.
I did not look at my weekly to-do lists or my calendar to find some task to take me away from my work (I excel at productive procrastination, so this was hard).
I packed up my knitting so it was out of sight and hard to get to. This is embarrassing to admit! But I will knit the shit out of anything, especially if I’m feeling anxious. It’s a little anxiety massage.
I stayed at my desk— this is a rarity for my other work from home days. I often write from my couch, the kitchen table, the bed, and frequently with a very cute cat in my lap, but Friday remained stationed in front of the heating vent for the full retreat.
Something of note:
I did not police my internet time like I have in the past. In fact, as I worked on the proposal, I looked up comp titles and purchased books during my retreat. I’m not mad about this. I didn’t wander to check my email or other non-writing related things.
I worked for a six hour sprint and accomplished my reasonable goal: I outlined the entire proposal and organized a ton of content. I created a list of the materials I still need and identified some ways I can work towards creating a more robust platform (ew) for myself as a writer. Am I submitting my proposal anytime soon? No! But the structure is there if opportunity arises and I will continue to work on it in tandem with the content I’ve been working on for over a year.
Afterwards I rewarded myself with a walk to the used bookstore where I purchased Wow, No Thank You, which I had completely forgotten I purchased online earlier in the day to replace my first copy, which I gave to a friend. I’d be mad, but I don’t think anyone can have too much Sam Irby.
Closing Thoughts:
Would I have loved to have four days in a small cabin up the shore to work? Sure! Was this time very valuable, intentional, and productive? Yes! In fact, I enjoyed this time so much that I may plan two or three micro-retreats throughout 2025.
How do you make time for work you care about when you don’t have the resources to support it in an ideal way? Tell me everything.
Just one Update:
I have officially had enough people ask me if they can give me money for my Substack to warrant turning on paid subscriptions. To be clear: This content as you know it will always be free, but if people want to support my writing, I would like to accept that support! I spent much of my teens and twenties pretending I was too proud for that and it turns out I am not. I am actually very proud to take support when people want to give it. Paid subscriptions will be activated at the end of January and unless you’d like to contribute, you won’t have to change a single thing about how you interact with this newsletter! If you would like to contribute, I’ll share more about that soon. As a paid subscriber you might get lil’ treats from time to time, but again, the writing here is for everyone.
"This needs to be funnier" wow is that a relatable note to self
Love this!! Such a good reminder that you CAN create space at home to work on important projects. Excited to hear more about this book project! (I'm working on a proposal too, so maybe we can commiserate in the new year!!)