It has been a challenging week, as far as getting anything done goes. My husband pretty much runs errands or works when I don’t, so I have puppy duty. It’s fun, of course, but makes it tough to get anything done. So right now, I’m taking advantage of naptime to get this update written.
In light of the challenges, I’ve come up with a couple of things that help when times are stressful:
- Be flexible, and
- Have routines.
They seem contradictory but they”re actually not.
We had our family’s Easter dinner this past Sunday, rather than on Easter, a week earlier. My daughter had to work on Easter and had already planned to come home the following weekend, so we just switched it. It also meant I got a few goodies for her basket at half price. 🙂 Being flexible meant everyone was there, we were more relaxed, and we had fun.
Routines help, too. I do certain tasks on certain days, at certain times. For example, I do paperwork–personal bill paying, as well as bookkeeping for my family’s two businesses, on Monday. I set the bills aside in a letter sorter as they come in (email bills go into a specified folder), then deal with them all at once. Much more efficient than doing a little bit at a time, yet is often and regular enough the filing doesn’t pile up.
I haven’t been working out lately, but when I did, I did it right after I got home from work. Keeping to that routine helped ensure that it didn’t get lost in the shuffle of other things to do and forgotten.
Now for this week’s ROW80 update.
The good news: I did manage to open the book file and do some writing five times this week to meet my goal. The bad news: I only wrote about a paragraph each time. I started formatting the ebook but did not finish.
I signed up for an online writing workshop to try and kick back into gear there. Spending money on something like that tends to motivate me, so we’ll see how that works. In addition, I’m going to shoot for writing 300 words in the WIP, three times this week. I also want to get the ebook formatted.
What about you–do you have routines for certain tasks that help keep the stress away? Has flexibility helped you lately? Got any more stress reduction tips? 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.