Tag Archives: time management

A Kinder, Gentler To-do List; Blog Scavenger Hunt

by Jennette,

Last week, I was overwhelmed – and the holiday season was just beginning! My writing was suffering – there just weren’t enough hours in the day. It was stressful, and all I wanted to do was play computer games.

That was not acceptable. Something had to be done.

I looked at my to-do list, which had grown to epic proportions. Each day, there were more things on it than anyone could hope to accomplish in the time I had! I remembered an email I’d read – from the Flylady list, I think – that said we tend to put far more on our lists than we can possibly do in a day. I had a lot of things on mine that had been on there for months, and I still hadn’t gotten to them!

It was time to be ruthless. Anything that wasn’t really that important was gone.

This little button = less stress!

Other tasks – stuff to do when I had some spare time (LOL) or after New Year’s, when I planned to kick my book promo efforts up, went onto another, separate list.

Stuff I did every week, and had finally developed into enough of a habit that I didn’t really need it on the to-do list anymore, also went bye-bye.

My stress level immediately went down.

Now, the list has expanded once again, but a lot of that is one-off, holiday tasks. And a lot of those are easy, little things that don’t take a ton of time, but that I might not get to or remember if I don’t note them. And the weekly list? Down to four things at the moment, included in the above.

What’s your to-do list look like? Do you routinely put way too much on it? Or do you make one that’s more realistic – if you make one at all? Any more tips for managing that list? Please share!

Just for Fun

I am participating in a blog scavenger hunt, posted by one of my writer colleagues, Samantha Warren. Samantha writes fantasy, and is turning 30 today. To celebrate, she’s hosting a week’s worth of scavenger hunt fun and prizes. The grand prize is a new Kindle e-reader! There are a bunch of other cool prizes – one or two every day, including an e-copy of Time’s Enemy. So stop by and wish Samantha a happy birthday, and check out some of those blogs to see if you can answer a few questions and win!

ROW80 Update:

I did not post a Wednesday ROW80 update this week, as I had nothing to report. That will probably continue to be my pattern, as the Wednesday blog post update is something else I’m taking off my list.

I did meet my goal of getting Chapter 17 revised – wow, was that one a lot of work! – and I exceeded my type-in goal, and completed two chapters.

However, this pace is not satisfactory. So this week, I want to:

  • Finish type-in through Chapter 9. Type-in is something I can do while the TV’s on, and interruptions are much less of a problem, so hopefully this goal is within reason.
  • Get Christmas decorating done
  • Order Christmas cards
  • Figure out gifts
  • Begin online shopping, especially gifts that are needed sooner than Christmas for events, party exchanges, etc.

By the way, my overall goals have been shot to hell, a long time ago. I didn’t realize how badly until I just now looked up the original goal post. Stop laughing! Let’s just refine the goals right now. I just want to get this edit done, and out to the beta readers. That’s i! And I still fear it may be too ambitious, but I’m going to try, because readers are waiting for this book! If that’s not motivation, I don’t know what is.

How are your goals coming?

Set a Goal You Can’t Miss

by Jennette,

Once again for my ROW80 update, I have to report that I fell short of my goals. I’ve seen a lot of this with NaNoWriMo, too. And of course, we hear other people besides writers, having to-do lists and goals they can’t possibly accomplish in the time allotted.

I didn’t think my goals were unreasonable when I initially set them, yet I feel like I worked the past three days on this revision, and I still didn’t quite get through as much as I wanted. I got through Chapters 15 and 16, and almost got Chapter 17 revised – then I found one more scene, one that had been moved from earlier in the chapter. I also ran into a plot point that won’t work the way I wrote it, so I need to come up with something else. And the type-in? Stop laughing.

So this week, I want to set goals the Writers’ Boot Camp way. But the principle doesn’t just apply to writing, we can apply it to any big task. Writers’ Boot Camp is a workshop taught by author and former Army Ranger Todd Stone, and if you’re a writer and have the chance to take it, do it! He may even show up to teach the workshop in a camouflage kilt. 😀

Anyway, he started out the workshop talking about goals. Usually, we’re encouraged to set goals that are attainable, but not necessarily easily. Stone takes the opposite approach: he suggests setting a goal so low, you can’t help but make it! Here were the examples he gave:

Can you write a page a day? If you’re not sure, how about a paragraph? Or even a sentence???

Yes, that small. The thing is, we usually are able to go much further – so we get more done, AND we have that sense of accomplishment in saying Yes! I met my goal!

This could easily be applied to decluttering, getting your house in order, or working on a big project of another sort.

So I am going to set a small goal this week. I just can’t bring myself to say I’ll only revise one page, so I’ll go for that last remaining scene of Chapter 17, and the type-in of Chapter One.

How are you doing on your goals, whatever they may be? Have you ever tried this tactic? How did it work for you?

Time Management Tip: Make a big task fit your life, rather than the other way around

by Jennette,

NaNoWriMo Winner 2009We’re over halfway through this year’s NaNoWriMo, so if you’re hoping to pound out a 50,000-word novel this month, you should have over 25,000 words written. I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo this year, because I’m knee-deep in revisions for my upcoming time travel romance, Time’s Fugitive, which is due for release in late December. NaNo is for writing new pages, and requires a new project, and only once have I been at the right stage in my writing to attempt it. That was in 2009, and I won!

I have a couple of tips that greatly helped me to win NaNo in 2009. I even finished a day early! And this isn’t just for writers participating in the craziness that is writing an entire, 50,000-word novel in a month; this can apply to any big task that could take a month or more, like decluttering a room.

The thing to remember is that you should plan your NaNo writing time to fit into the rest of your life, if at all possible, rather than trying to make the rest of your life fit NaNoWriMo. This is even more important if you have a full time job and a family who is unwilling to be pushed aside for a month while you write. But with these two simple tricks, you won’t need to do that, and your family hopefully won’t grow to resent your writing by November 30. Here they are:

  1. Whoever left these probably got caught in the rain!

    Divide up the task by the time you have to accomplish it. For NaNoWriMo, dividing 50,000 words into thirty days means write 1,667 words a day. But wait! Do you really have the same amount of time to devote to writing every day of the week? I think most of us have certain commitments – kids’ sporting events, household chores, social obligations – that greatly reduce, or even eliminate, time to write at least one evening a week. On the other hand, you probably have other days where you have more time. For many of us, that’s the weekend. So set daily goals in accordance with those other obligations – a higher word count on the days where there’s more time to write, and a lower word count on the days we know will be full.

  2. I alluded to the other tip in my Not Enough Time post: Give yourself one day off per week. Even if you don’t have any days you think are crammed full, this allows for the unexpected. Our best-laid plans often fall by the wayside thanks to the Unexpectedness Monster – surprise visitors one evening, the kitchen sink develops a leak the next, the project you thought would be easy takes ten times as much time as you estimated. So reduce your stress and plan for the unexpected! If you’re lucky, this will work like taking an umbrella somewhere: if you take it, it doesn’t rain; forget the umbrella, and get caught in a downpour.

So with the above in mind, re-divvy up your daily and weekly goals. I wrote 12,000 words/week for NaNoWriMo 2009: 1,500 words a day, four days a week, and 3,000 words each on Saturday and Sunday. My day off was usually Monday, an evening I typically have a lot of household chores. Sometimes I managed to fit 500 words or so in on Monday, which made it a little easier if I had another busy day later that week. November 29th was a Sunday that year, so I wrote my last 2,000 words and put myself down for a Win a day early!

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? If so, how are you coming along? Either way, got any tips to get this big task – or any other – done and still be sane at the end of the month?

Umbrella photo via Wikipedia, public domain

ROW80: Need Headphones

by Jennette,

On Sunday, I got the troublesome scene that needed to be inserted, written. Monday is paperwork day, so no writing then, but that was expected. Today I got a little done on the rewrite on the following scene, but had to stop before I finished it.

It’s the husband’s TV night, and the only way I get writing done then is with headphones. Only problem is, my headphones are wireless – and they needed to be charged. They can’t be used while charging, so…. no headphones. I could have taken my netbook and gotten the writing done elsewhere; instead, I got caught up on other related activities, including one I’d put off for a long time.

I just uploaded the files for Time’s Enemy to Lightning Source for additional ebook distribution. They distribute to over two dozen outlets, including Kobo and Powell’s. So, more places to buy the book = better. I may not sell anything through those outlets. But who knows, maybe I will. And hey, it’s free, since I use Lightning Source for my print books.

So I may not be where I wanted to be with the writing, but I got other stuff done. Lesson Learned: charge the headphones before the battery runs out.

How are you doing on your goals this week?

ROW80: Making it a Book You Want to Read

by Jennette,

I am late posting today’s ROW80 update because, well, there isn’t much to update. After the early part of the week’s quick success getting Chapter 12 marked up, things slowed down. A lot. In revising Chapter 13, I ran into a bottleneck. One new scene needed to be added, but before I could write it, I needed to firm up the characters’ motivations for doing the (otherwise stupid) things they were doing. That took a while. I also forgot to take into account that yesterday was RWA chapter meeting day, and for me, that’s a good 6-7 hour chunk of time, including the drive to and from which is an hour each way.

I got about half of the new scene written yesterday, and finished it up today. I still need to write a new beginning to the following scene, needed due to the prior new scene, and the aforementioned character motivations.

So, less progress than I would have liked. I’m not making excuses, but here are the reasons:

  • Failure to take other time commitments into account
  • Failure to gauge the difficulty (and time requirements) of the task
  • Time spent playing video games when the plot solutions weren’t forthcoming

The reason for all this? As I told one reader who didn’t want to wait until December for Time’s Fugitive: “Believe me, you don’t want to read this book now. It’s full of plot holes, confusion, and characters doing stupid things. I’m making it into a book you will want to read.” Hopefully!

For this week, I’d like to get revised through Chapter 15. I’m hesitant to commit to that, as both 14 and 15 are going to require a lot of work. But I’m through the block on 13, and think the rest of it won’t be too bad. So just that and 14 doesn’t seem like quite enough. Also, I don’t have a ton of other stuff going on this week, so… maybe!

Do you find yourself setting goals without taking other commitments and the difficult of the task into account? How does it work out for you?

ROW80: So Far, So Good

by Jennette,

When you have a big task, it helps to break it down into smaller tasks, which eventually add up to getting it all done. This week, my ROW80 goal was to get Chapters 12-14 of Time’s Fugitive revised. Three days into the week, I have already accomplished 1/3 of my goal! (I typically don’t write on Monday – that’s paperwork day.)

If you’re a ROW80’er, how are you doing? Any tips for getting at that big task?

ROW80: Too Ambitious

by Jennette,

The title pretty much sums up my ROW80 goals for this week. I’m still having trouble getting this Sunday – Saturday week down: once again, if it was Monday – Sunday, I’d make my goals. Or at least one of them.

I made the remnants of last week’s goals on Sunday. For the rest of this week, my goals were to get Chapters 9-11 of Time’s Fugitive revised, and to get the first half of the book typed-in and sent to the beta readers. In actuality, I got about halfway through Chapter 11 revising. Didn’t touch the type-in, as you might guess. I’m rethinking that part of the goal anyway – if I sent the first half of the book to the beta readers now, they’ll be done with it before I have the second half ready. So that can wait a week or so. Worse, the second half of the book needs a LOT more work than the first, so my revision speed isn’t likely to improve. So for this week, I’m going to try to be realistic, and shoot for one simple goal: Finish revisions through Chapter 14. As a bonus, I’ll either plow on through Chapter 15, or start on the type-in.

So here’s to being realistic! How did you do on your goals this week, whether or not you’re a writer, and whether or not you’re participating in ROW80?

#ROW80: As Expected

by Jennette,

…I have nothing, writing-wise. But I expected that, as we had dinner plans on Monday, plus Monday is paperwork day, so I often don’t get to writing on Mondays. And yesterday – also expected nothing. The past couple weeks have been one thing after another, and I have things promised to others that I haven’t even been able to get to. Now they’re to the point where I really need to.

When I can, I put off other stuff and make time to write. Sometimes the writing has to wait.

At least I accomplished one big task that’s been hanging for over a month now: reformat my daughter’s computer. (This should have been on the list I posted Sunday, but I forgot it.) It’s been slow and bogged down for a while, and eventually got so that software couldn’t be installed on it (a problem when that includes security updates and virus definitions!). We weren’t even able to copy her stuff off onto a flash drive, so I had to actually take the hard drive out of her computer, install it in mine, copy stuff off, and that added to the overall task. Also, that was when my graphics card decided to crap out – in the middle of copying! But all that is behind me now (hopefully!). So now it’s on to formatting, cover design, and critiques I owe!

If you’re doing ROW80, is your week going as expected, even if your expectations weren’t high?

ROW80: It’s 5:30PM

by Jennette,

And I just finished edits through Chapter 6. Does that tell you anything? More importantly, does it tell me something?

(Yeah, like I took on too much this week!)

Granted, yesterday was fun. I went on a “castles and caves” cruise through central Ohio, saw some lovely sights, spent time with some wonderful friends, not to mention my daughter. You know, doing that living life thing we writers often have to make a point to do. So it was well worth it.

I wanted to get through Chapter 8. Or ideally, Chapter 10. Reality? What’s that?

Sigh. Okay, time to get real. Thankfully, I don’t have any major plans today or this coming weekend, so that will help a lot. I also have several things I’ve committed to do for others that I can’t put off any longer, things I owe writer friends who do stuff for me like beta reading and copy editing. So I am going to commit to the following:

Format anthology for my copyeditor

Book cover design for my beta reader

Chapter critique for my critique partner

Edit Chapters 7 & 8

If you are participating in ROW80, good luck!