I’ve been a slacker this week. My green items makes it look like I did a lot, but the main thing – the writing! – I Didn’t. Even. Touch. My husband has even been out of town, so I should have had plenty of time!
So what happened?
Not gonna lie; I’ve been spending too much time playing Farm Frenzy Pizza Party. The other thing is that time is like closet space or hard drive capacity. Whatever stuff (things to do) you have, will expand to fill it.
Thirdly, I didn’t do a good job allocating my tasks for each day. Some days, I simply put too much, so tasks got shoved off to the next day, which made that one even more overloaded. So next week, I’m making a more concerted effort to do better in this area. Planning out our work ahead of time can help in other areas, too; I’m convinced it’s one way I’ve managed to stick to my workout schedule. I use Jonathan Roche’s No Excuses Workout, and every Sunday he sends out an email reminding us to schedule in our workouts.
Last week’s results:
- Critique a chapter for a writing friend
- Book review
- Additional work requested for side job website
- Break down marketing task list into Yeses, Nos, and Maybes
- Brainstorm some articles I can write for my newsletter
- Review my last draft of my next book and get it ready for beta readers
- Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
The next book is shorter than my Saturn Society novels, thank goodness. And the edits hopefully won’t be too bad, since it’s already been through the How to Revise Your Novel wringer. This time, I’m going over the comments from my first beta reader (also my copy editor), plus adding in a few more research details I’ve learned about since writing this story. The book is 263 pages, so if I split them evenly across eight work sessions, that comes out to be 33 pages a session. For me, a “work session” is roughly an hour, maybe two. My goal is to do one four weeknights (there’s always one night where I just have too much going on), two on Saturday, and two on Sunday. Actually, two on Sunday may be a little ambitious, as lately, it seems my blog posts have taken me nearly all day to write. They don’t really, but feel that way, the way I procrastinate and take too much time researching (then playing some Farm Frenzy). But I’m going to shoot for it anyway. It should be doable, because most pages don’t have any marks, and the research details affect only limited portions of the story. I also have Monday off of work, so that will help.
Here’s the plan:
- Review Hangar 18: Legacy for beta reader edits and research details
- Collect tax stuff for accountant
- Complete interview questions for guest blog
- Read nonfiction book for research
- Make list of review sites to submit to
- Pick one task off of marketing list developed last week, and implement it
- Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
- Track food intake every day (I’ve been doing this for a while, but really slacked off last week, so it needs to be on this list)
How did you do this week? Do you divvy up your work over the week? Got any other tips for getting it all done?
New ROW80 seal design by “The Daring Novelist,” Camille LaGuire
