time management | Jennette Marie Powell

by Jennette, August 11, 2013

Get your mind out of the gutter! I don’t mean that! I’m talking about a nonfiction book I read last week.

18minutes 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done
by Peter Bregman was the Kindle Daily Deal one day for $1.99. Finding focus and dealing with distractions are both challenges for me, so I figured what the heck?

There are some pretty good ideas in this book, some of which I’ll put to use right away, others I’ve already been doing. The 18 minutes in the title refers to spending five minutes at the beginning of the day planning what you’re going to do (I already do this), and five minutes at the end of the day going over what you did and are going to do the next day (I do this, too). The other eight minutes are a new concept to me, however. The idea is, once an hour, pause for a minute and take stock of your day. Are you being the person you want to be? Are you focusing on areas that you want to? I’m assuming he only has allowed for eight of these pauses because this book is mostly focused on business (although it does touch on personal life and relationships, too). But I found it an interesting concept.

Another concept I found interesting was that, while most time management books tend to focus on getting all the stuff on your to-do list done, this one instead tells us that we try to do too much – more than anyone can reasonably do in a day – and that we should instead choose five or so areas in our life we want to focus on, and build our to-do lists around those to the extent we can (while acknowledging that there are going to be things we simply have to do). And get rid of the rest. This is also something I’ve been trying to work on this past year, although I hadn’t thought about it this clearly. It’s why I always put off marketing and promo activities – I simply hate them, and don’t want to do it. The time I accidentally wiped out my to-do list was almost a relief, because I remembered the really important stuff, but most of the marketing stuff simply went away. And I decided I was OK with that, even if it meant I sell fewer books. Because I also decided that I’d rather have fun with my writing than let it become focused on sales, and something I dread.

ROW80 is something that can be whatever we want, and for me it’s fun! So here’s how I did this week:

Skim/read three chapters in research book – Nope.
1500 words on new ms – Yes!
4 workouts – Yes!

I am just going to shelve the research for now, since it’s not turning out to be very interesting, it’s for a different story than the one I’m working on right now, and I want to focus on that. So I’m raising the bar on wordcount this week, but I again have things going on several evenings, so not too much:

2000 words on new ms
4 workouts

What about you? Found any tips for managing the to-do list lately? Whether or not you did, and whether or not you’re doing ROW80, how did your week go? Please share – I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

by Jennette, May 12, 2013

MC900444732 It’s what we learn, as writers, that we should be putting into our stories: all the battles, the falling-in-love, the sexytimes, the tension; none of the teeth-brushing. In my case, it’s Life: the Good Stuff that’s keeping me from meeting my ROW80 goals, or in the case of next week, demanding that I once again set the bar low.

I’m talking things like end-of-year school programs, concerts, senior recognition programs, and planning a graduation party. We had each of those last week, and more this week. In addition, this week is Birthday Week: me, my husband, and my sister-in-law all have birthdays this week, plus today is Mothers’ Day. So a lot of life-interference, as far as the writing goes, but no complaints here, as it’s all good.

Despite the busyness, last week didn’t turn out too bad:

Writing: partial – complete research for short story & and do initial read-through – I researched, and got about 1/3 of the way through the read-through.
Fitness: partial – 5 workouts – got 3 in.

The giveaway has ended. Thanks for your interest!

I also got graduation announcements out, and got the brochure for my new-business-owner relative completed and off to the printer. So not a bad week at all, despite the lack of green above.

We have a family get-together today, and another one evening later this week. There’s a band concert another evening this week. We also need to have a family meeting to pin down the rest of the details for the grad party, so I’m setting the bar even lower this week:

Writing: complete initial read-through and mark-up for revision
Fitness: 3 workouts

What about you? How do you manage to keep going on your normal activities when life’s crazy all around you? Even when it’s a good-crazy? I’d love to hear from you (and could use the tips)!

by Jennette, March 11, 2013

I’m baaaaaaaccckkkk! Well, okay, for the three or four of you who noticed I haven’t posted anything but Sunday ROW80 updates for the past two weeks.

Stress–it’s not pretty

I needed a blog break. I haven’t taken one in over a year, other than when I was in France. And let me tell you, it was great. I learned a lot–like how we need to ask ourselves the right questions in order to find the answers we need. For me, that was “Am I having fun?” My commenters had some great suggestions too, like “Is it worth it?” and “Why am I doing this?” and “Where can I find some inspiration?”

I was also reminded that when we’re feeling stressed, it’s because we feel we don’t have choices. But the fact is, when we look at our to-do list, we have more choices than we think. Psychologist-author Kassandra Lamb outlined this fantastically in her post “Whaddya Mean, Good Things are Still Stressful?” Absolutely worth the read! Go check it out, I’ll wait.

Back? OK. One of those things I had on my “have to” list was blogging. I know consistency is important to build up a readership and build up my store of content here, but it was getting so that I felt half of my weekend was being taken up by 1) writing the blogs, after 2) procrastinating writing the blogs and 3) researching for the blogs, especially the My Town Monday blogs. Don’t get me wrong, I love sharing things about my hometown that are cool, because that’s so not the image most people have about Dayton, but writing those blogs can be a lot of work. And it was starting to not be fun any more.

Same went for things like getting on Facebook and Twitter, and even outlining my next book! Yet the more I procrastinated, the guiltier I felt… yet the more all I wanted to do was sit at my computer and play more time management games. And then felt guiltier about that. I notice most of the blogs I follow don’t religiously post on the exact same topics, the exact same two or three days every week, and I don’t think any worse of these writers for it. So why do I expect this of myself?

So I took some time off all of the above, and I realized no one had a problem with it… except me. I was my own worst boss.

My boss at the day job does not act like this. He’s probably the most easy-going guy I have ever worked for. He gives me something to do, then leaves me alone to do it. When I present my work, he lets me know in a very matter-of-fact, non-judgmental way, what’s good, and what needs to be changed. As long as the work gets done, he really doesn’t care how I spend every minute of the day. He doesn’t care when I get to the office, or when I leave, as long as I put in the time I charge to my time sheet required by the company and our client. He doesn’t care if I spend time reading up on some technology that will help me to better do my job, as long as the work gets done. As far as scheduling goes, it’s up to me to set my schedule, and if it turns out something needs to change, I can change it. Everyone should have it so good! The only tricky part is that he has so much going on, he’s hard to track down when I need some direction or have a question, but I’ll take that with the good.

I decided it’s time my writing boss is like this. So here is a message for the outgoing one, because no one can say “You’re Fired!” like the WWE’s Vince McMahon:

And oh – as you might have guessed, my posting might not be as regular from here out – or it might! It depends on what else I have going on, and if I have something to say! I will definitely continue doing My Town Monday posts, because I enjoy them, just not as regularly. Same goes for WANA Wednesday! I do have some fun new releases to share this week, so see you in a couple of days!

What about you? Are you too hard on yourself, whether you’re a writer or not? Do you have a tyrant of a boss who needs to be fired? Feel free to show him or her this video! And please share – I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, January 14, 2013

Ever feel like that? I feel like that… um, on a regular basis. Pretty much every day.

Do you ever feel like this?

There is so much minutiae in our lives (don’t you love that word “minutiae?”) that it’s sometimes overwhelming. Actually, it’s often overwhelming. There are groceries to get–or in my case, since my DH does the shopping (bless him!), groceries to remember to put on the store list, or he won’t get them. This is why, as I write this, we are collecting kitchen trash in one of those little grocery store plastic bags. No one remembered to put “trash bags” on the list.

There are appointments to remember–dentists, doctors, the tax accountant. My husband’s in the process of doing some work on the garage, so there are things to remember related to that. There are school projects for our daughter, and programs we want to attend for her. There are things to do related to those appointments–medical info to collect, tax info to collect (and with three businesses, there’s a lot of that), lists of things that need to be done to the garage by the construction guy. Oh, and we’re almost out of turtle food. And will you pick up this prescription on the way home?

And that’s not even counting my to-do list relating to my books and being an author–a to-do list that’s even larger when you’re also your own publisher. I thought I had a lot to remember before I published. I’d always heard that it got worse after you published, but that’s one of those things, like having a kid, that you know mentally before, but have no idea until you have one, how much more there is to do. (And like kids, it’s very worthwhile, so I’m not complaining, just explaining.)

Add in the holidays, and there are presents to buy, parties to attend (or host, with all the additional things to remember for that), kids’ programs to see, wrapping to do, cards to buy, sign, seal and send….

Just typing that is making me stressed, and it’s over until December comes back around!

How do you manage it all?

I used to write notes. But there were problems with that. One, there ended up being notes lying all over the place. My husband still does this, and our daughter and I are constantly clearing the clutter, tiny slips of paper, used envelopes, sticky notes with a phone number or a cryptic few words scrawled on it. When I ask him if he still needs them, he almost never does, but invariably, if one gets tossed without us checking first, that’s one he still needs. As for me, when this was my MO, the biggest problem with the notes wasn’t even the clutter, but I’d lose the note.

One year my company bought me a big, thick day planner, but it was so big and thick (and heavy), it never left my desk. It did help me with stuff I had to do there, but did little that a to-do list I’d scribble on a piece of paper didn’t.

My Cozi to-do list: It’s frightening

Now we have Cozi Organizer to help, but even that’s imperfect. First, we have to remember to put something on it to begin with (trash bags?). Then, if it’s an appointment, we can put in a reminder that will ring an alert on our phone or email us at the specified amount of time before it, but that only helps when I’m actually sitting next to my phone and hear the notification when it goes off. My daughter got a tablet computer for Christmas, and one of the first apps she downloaded was Cozi. She’d used it on her computer before, but that only helped if she was actually sitting at her computer when she thought of something to add to it, or if she had her phone in hand when a text notification came in. The tablet is in her hands enough that this will help, one hopes. 😀

What do you do to rein in all the minutiae of day-to-day life? Do you take it in stride, or are you constantly in danger of forgetting something, like I am? What tools do you use to help, and how do you get the most out of them? Please tell me I’m not alone in feeling like the person in the photo!

by Jennette, January 13, 2013

Last Thursday, I attended a meeting of the Dayton WordPress Users Group, where we talked about security.

This was something I’d thought about a while back, when I read this blog by Marcy Kennedy. I knew a few other writers whose blogs had been hacked. I’d never had any problems myself, but that’s one of those things where it’s far better to be preemptive. So a while back, I installed one of the security plug ins Marcy mentioned. I learned a few things at our local user group meeting too, and I was able to contribute, because the guy presenting hadn’t heard of the plug-in I used.

Bottom line with your website/blog’s security, get it before you need it!

I did well with my ROW80 goals this week, too – I accomplished the main thing I set out to, which was complete the edits for my upcoming science fiction romance novel. I then went one better and got some formatting done too!

Finish edits for Hangar 18: Legacy – Done!
Fitness activity 5x – Done!
One chapter’s exercises in Get it Together, an estate planning guide. I wanted to do this last ROW, but wound up putting it off when I decided to do NaNoWriMo. This is stuff that isn’t very fun to do (or even think about), but that really needs to be done. – uh, no.
Be a good ROW80 sponsor and visit all the blogs I’m supposed to at minimum. – Done!

For this week, I’d like to:

Format Hangar 18: Legacy for print, proofread, and upload to printer
Fitness activity 5x
One chapter’s exercises in the estate planning guide
Be a good ROW80 sponsor and visit all the blogs I’m supposed to at minimum

What are you planning to do this week? If you have a website or blog, have you thought about securing it? I’d love to hear from you – please share!

by Jennette, January 7, 2013

Blasting off We’re taking a break from the usual My Town and Misfit Mondays today for the start of a new ROW80 – and a new set of goals!

I got a late start on this as usual. A lot of people posted new year’s goals last week, but I needed to really think about what I wanted to do–and more important, could accomplish–this year. For ROW80, we’re just dealing with 80 days, or 11-1/2 weeks.

But it’s best to start with something a little longer term. Many business experts advise having a five-year-plan. I’d like to say I have one of those, but I don’t. I do have an overall idea of where I want to be, both in my writing and life in general, but that’s it.

Back to those one-year goals. One thing I learned is, they need to be written down in a place you’ll remember–and will remember to consult at least quarterly. This is the part I missed last year. I vaguely remember making them, but I can’t find anything in the areas of my computer where I’d expect this to be. I did find 2009, 2010, and 2011 goals documents. (They were kind of funny, still focused on agents, editors, and selling to NY–boy, have things changed!) I never did find one for 2012, so maybe I was thinking of the list I wrote for 2011.

This year, I put the 2013 Goals list at the front of my Weekly Status Report document. This is where I document what I did each week, what my plans are for the next week, any issues, etc. (Here’s an example of what’s in my Weekly Status Report if anyone wants to see/use it.) I add a page each week, and start a new document each year. Each week when I update it, it of course opens to page 1. So BIG DUH – that’s where I should put my yearly goals!

So here’s the list:

Edit and publish Hangar 18: Legacy
Write/Publish new futuristic romance
Write two short nonfiction works
Write/publish one short story
Publish next OVRWA anthology through my publishing company, Mythical Press (may or may not contain the story noted above)
Revise contemporary YA written for NaNoWriMo 2012
Begin planning phase of Saturn Society Book 3 or continue work on urban fantasy started for NaNoWriMo 2009
I also have some professional goals relating to my day job, which are not detailed out above

Um… yeah, seeing it spelled out like that, it looks a bit ambitious. But that’s the beauty of setting goals and working on them through a group like ROW80–if we see they just aren’t going to happen, we can change them.

And with ROW80 comes the practical part: breaking them down into doable pieces. Here’s what I hope to accomplish this round (which ends March 28):

Finish editing and publish Hangar 18: Legacy (I want this released by the end of this month)
First draft of nonfiction piece–I’m doing a presentation based on it for my RWA chapter meeting on March 16, so it needs to be done by then.
Outline futuristic romance
30,000 words on futuristic romance

Let’s break those goals down even more. Doing weekly goals helps me TONS. This is also where I add other, ongoing stuff, like fitness goals. So for this week, my plans are:

Finish edits for Hangar 18: Legacy
Fitness activity 5x
One chapter’s exercises in Get it Together, an estate planning guide. I wanted to do this last ROW, but wound up putting it off when I decided to do NaNoWriMo. This is stuff that isn’t very fun to do (or even think about), but that really needs to be done.
Be a good ROW80 sponsor and visit all the blogs I’m supposed to at minimum – yes, I’m a sponsor! It’s my first time for that, and I’m really looking forward to it. 🙂

Whether or not you’re doing ROW80, what are your plans for this year? If you are doing ROW80, is this your first time, or are you an old hand? I’d love to hear from you – please share!

by Jennette, August 30, 2012

A couple weeks ago, I blogged about courting burnout. As writers, we face a lot of obstacles when it comes to getting the words on the page, massaged into something worth reading, and out the door. Actually, this is true for many people, especially those who work multiple jobs (I consider writing a second job), have kids of an age that require a lot of hands-on attention, or have a time-consuming hobby. More often than not, it seems there just aren’t enough hours in a day.

A little help makes a career – and other things! – grow

Go long enough like that, and it gets stressful. To heap logs on the stress-fire, many writers get stressed out even more if they go for more than a few days without writing. It’s not a deadline issue, the not-writing in itself adds to the stress, making the writer like the can of pop that’s been left in the freezer too long.

One way to alleviate the not-enough-hours-in-the-day problem is to ask for help. When I got help on an issue I was having in my day job, this went a long way to reduce stress. My helper didn’t even end up doing anything; I was able to fix some of the problems, and others resolved themselves, but just knowing someone else was helping made all the difference.

At home when there’s too much to do and my family can see me getting stressed, they sometimes offer to help. Sometimes, there’s nothing they can do – the writing stuff, I have to do, and other tasks (typically involving computer work) fall outside of their technical capabilities. But I did have my daughter spend some time uploading photos to a client’s website, and it took a great load off, even though it only took her an hour. And yes, I paid her, since I was being paid for the work, a win-win.

So why is it so hard to ask for help?

I didn’t need to very often as a kid – my responsibilities mainly consisted of simple chores and getting my homework done. Occasionally, I needed help with math, and I had no problem asking my dad for help. But this was only occasional.

Maybe I never learned to ask for help.

Or it may have stemmed from my first “real” job. I was a one-woman art department for a building products manufacturing company. I worked in the marketing department, but I was the only graphic designer – everyone else was more focused on business-to-business sales. I had investigated professional organizations, but they really didn’t do anything for me. I didn’t have a professional network, seeing as this was my first job in the field. So there simply wasn’t anyone I could ask for for help.

I was also the only person in my company who used a Mac – back then, you couldn’t run professional-level graphic design programs on a Windows computer. For many years, no one in our IT department knew much about Macs, so I was on my own there, too. About a year before I left the company, they hired an IT guy who welcomed the challenge of working with my Mac. He helped me get the Mac online, which led to me learning HTML and making a career change. But at my next job – my first in web development – I started out, once again, as the only person in the company with graphic design experience.

By then, my reluctance to ask for help was fully ingrained. I wanted to move more into the developer side of the business, because there wasn’t enough design work to keep me busy full-time. Also, the more I got into programming, the more I liked it. Some of my coworkers were glad to help when I had questions. But others would say, “that’s what we have programmers for,” like I was beneath that exalted status.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t try to figure out things on our own first – or at least search for answers on the web. Figuring it out ourselves is the best way to make what we’re learning stick. But when we’re spending too much time trying to find answers and not getting anywhere, it makes more sense – both for us, and for the company and clients who are paying us – to ask for help.

At that first job in software development, I gained several technical certifications and the respect of several of my coworkers. Management never saw me as anything other than a graphic artist who could do a bit of development. But at my next job, I was hired as a developer, and treated as an equal of the other developers. At that job and in my current one, I’m part of a team, and while I might sometimes spend more time than I should trying to figure out something on my own, I have great resources on which to call for help.

It’s still hard to do, but I think I’m getting better.

What about you? Do you have a hard time asking for help? Why do you think that is? Or if not, do you have any suggestions for us recovering holdouts?

Photo by fotolia.com via Microsoft Office Clipart

by Jennette, August 16, 2012

Monday was the second time I’ve missed a blog since I started over a year ago.

I had time to write a post the day before. I decided to play computer games instead.

My brother, in our dad’s old Camaro. Unfortunately, this is not the kind of burnout I’m talking about.

I had a topic lined up. Between a motorcycle I’d ridden only twice all summer, and this post by Kristen Lamb, I knew I needed a “play” break, and I took a nice ride Saturday to do just that. And wound up taking photos to go with a My Town Monday blog post. But honestly, it was a play break.

But when it came down to it, I Just. Didn’t. Want to.

When I am not sitting at my computer at a place where I can write a blog, I have all kinds of great ideas. If it’s something new, I note it on my Blog Ideas document on my phone, which gets backed up to Dropbox and is always available on my computer. But when I’m not at my computer in a place where I can write a blog, I also get great words for said blogs. Then I go home and when I am sitting at my computer, I Just. Don’t. Want to.

So this week I didn’t.

I’ve been having this kind of blah feeling way too often. It’s been bad all summer, and I don’t think it’s a “summertime blues” thing. It’s not just blogging, either. It’s the day job (which I like!), other things around home, and even writing fiction. No motivation to do anything!

A lot of times when I’m trying to figure out what to do in a case like this, I ask myself what would I tell a friend who told me these things.

In this case, I would ask her, could she be depressed?

But I have not been feeling sad. Just unmotivated – to do anything – and tired, both physically and mentally.

One thing I have managed to do this summer is to (mostly) keep up with exercise. I do three interval workouts on the treadmill every week, plus a couple of shorter workouts doing things like pushups, crunches, lunges, etc. The main reason I started was because I hoped it would help me be less tired.

It hasn’t helped noticeably. (I get to read on the treadmill, so that helps keep me motivated.)

Then I read this blog by Louise Behiel and saw myself all over it. I took the quiz linked from the blog, and the results did not surprise me.

I’m heading toward burnout.

It’s not my job – at least, not by itself.

It’s not the writing – I haven’t been doing that much of it.

It’s not the social media – I’ve cut way back on that, feeling this whole burnout thing coming on.

It’s the combination.

At work, I have one project where the client keeps having one problem after another with a web application my team developed (and I am currently the sole developer on). None of these problems appeared during testing, and I haven’t been able to reproduce them outside of his installation. But I’ve seen the issues, and it’s incredibly frustrating on many counts. I take a lot of pride in my day job work, and I take it personally when I can’t meet a client’s expectations, even when it’s no fault of my own. The client’s been great to work with – really, very understanding through all of this – and I hate letting people down, especially people I like. And, I know how frustrating it is to not be able to do my job because of something stupid like computer problems that are out of my control, and I hate it that my product is putting my client into that situation.

At home and with the writing, I have the age-old too much to do, not enough time to do it.

But like Louise’s post said, burnout is not a fun place to be, so I had to do something about it – three things, in fact:

1. At work, I asked for help, something I have a very hard time doing. The areas of the application where the problems occur are areas that aren’t in my main expertise, so hopefully my colleagues will be able to figure out something I wasn’t able, and I can move on to other things that will help my client.

2. At home, I’m making a concerted effort to focus on one thing at a time – and when I’m done, go ahead and play computer games.

I also got a call from my doctor yesterday with some news that surprised me: I have borderline hypo-thyroidism. After further discussion, we decided to just test again in six weeks or so to see if it’s still low, rather than jump into medication right away. It’s not low enough to necessarily have noticeable effects, but then again it could be adding to my tiredness. So #3 is, check to see if there’s a physiological cause.

What about you? Are you, or have you come close to burnout? What did/are you doing about it?

by Jennette, July 26, 2012

Lately, it seems I can’t keep my mind on one thing long enough to accomplish anything. This is not just in writing, it’s everywhere – stuff I need to do at home, and also at my day job.

Sometimes, life can feel like this

You’d think it would be easy to stay focused on my job. I’m blessed to have a job I actually like, and the people I work for pretty much hand me a project to do then leave me alone to do it. They are so hands off they rarely even ask for progress. So I can sit at my computer and write code all day 😀 – yes, I know that sounds awful to a lot of people, but it’s what I love! People seldom stop by my desk and interrupt me, unlike jobs past where that was the reason I couldn’t get anything done. When my awesome, current coworkers stop by, it’s usually for something important, like lunch. Yet, there are enough facets to a programming project that I actually can – and do – break up my tasks.

There’s always documentation to be written – something none of us like to do (otherwise, we become business analysts, like one of my peeps), and always seems to be put off until the last minute. There are usually bugs to fix. Email to answer. Luckily, my desk phone hardly ever rings (heaven!) and when it does, it’s a wrong number half the time.

But even when I’m deep in coding, work gets fragmented because to see my changes, I have to restart the web server on my computer, which takes a minute or two.

And while it’s doing that, I’m off to read blogs. Or check personal email on my phone. Or something similar.

At first, making use of these few minutes of downtime here and there seemed like a good way to keep up with all the blog reading I have. There are over 100 blogs in my Google Reader feed – granted, not all of them update regularly, or even often. But there are dozens of new ones to read every day, some of which I really enjoy and look forward to. But by the time I read a post and maybe comment, my web server’s been restarted for a couple of minutes and I’m basically goofing off. Not good. Other times, I’m on a roll with something, then a reminder pops up from Microsoft Outlook, or a random thing I need to remember pops into my head, so of course I have to note that great idea for a blog post on my phone, go call that person or make that appointment, or send that email. More fragmentation.

It’s worse at home, and I don’t have the excuse of waiting for a web server to restart. Mostly it’s that last thing – remembering something or the burst of inspiration that never comes when I’m actually working on the thing that needs inspiring. Sometimes I think of something I want to look up on the Internet – just for a minute! – which of course turns into fifteen. Or a half hour. Or more. I think this fragmentation is the root ~~of all evil~~ of my motivation problems. It doesn’t help that my to-do list is seemingly a mile long – and just thinking about it is overwhelming sometimes to the point that I just want to play computer games (and sometimes, that’s just what I do). This is worse when I’m not feeling well (my ~~excuse~~ reason for not posting a blog on Monday).

Some of this is within my control. Today, I went to work resolved to give my job my full attention, even if it meant twiddling my thumbs for a minute while waiting for the ol’ web server to restart or some files to copy over the network.

I got a lot done – got my project deployed to where my coworkers can use it, in fact. I got documentation written – a whole release notes document. Not a big one, but important. It felt good, I felt accomplished, and I enjoyed work more.

My blog reading might just have to get cut back a bit.

The other stuff is harder to get a handle on – what I call the “life” stuff. Remembering at nine PM, an appointment I have to make the next day during business hours. The best way to be sure I’ll remember it is to email myself at work – right now. That thing I have to look up on the Internet before I forget. I still haven’t gotten to blogs yet today, or writing, other than this blog post, because of planning other things – and playing a computer game or two.

What about you? Have you noticed your life getting more fragmented as you get older or take on more roles (adding “writer” to “mom/dad,” “employee,” “husband/wife,” etc.)? Does it disrupt your enjoyment of things you used to love? How did/do you handle it? Right now, “power through” is my only answer. Wish me luck that it’ll continue!

by Jennette, June 28, 2012

I am overwhelmed. First of all, by the wonderful outpouring of support from my blog readers who stopped by and commented while I was in France and away from Internet. Thank you! Your support and comments mean so much to me. And thanks again to Michele Stegman for a wonderful guest post last Thursday, as well as to all of our friends who stopped by.

It’s amazing how a little thing like a vacation can throw us off. I am, by necessity, a very routine-oriented person. Workouts, writing, blog posts, blog visits and comments, housework – none of that would get done consistently or well without my routines. It was nice to get away from the madness into a different kind of madness (I was with a tour group, and there was a lot of “hurry up and wait”), but it’s good to be back home. It’s going to take me a few days to get around to all the blogs I missed, and to get back on Facebook and Twitter. It took a good several hours to go through email, and that’s with going no-mail on most of my Yahoo groups. I also have a web design job to finish this weekend – good thing my workweek is short this week! Oh, and that’s not even counting any real writing. I’m not going to push that until next week.

What about you? Do you have trouble getting back into a routine after a little time off – even if it’s something planned and positive? Any advice for me?

Please know that I appreciate every comment, tweet and Facebook share! If you comment on my blog, I’ll return the favor – only now, it might take me a few days to get caught up. And I will share a little bit about my trip. Thanks so much for your support!

Life and Love in Four Dimensions

Tag Archives: time management