Clean thinking your writer’s calendar? Is that even possible?
I have seen hectic days and totally boring days. There are different kinds of problems with both. In the end both kinds of days reach the same conclusion. You windup producing very little, if you get anything productive done at all.
There is a solution for this. Clean up your calendar. Easier said than done. Far more needs to go into this than just some cutting here and there. Getting your calendar to the point there is a clear and concise focus to your days is not easy.
I still work at this and am still learning. So take your time. Work in small chunks to implement your ideas.
Good thing that my first step is to:
Evaluate where you are now
Seems too simple, but almost every organizational thought process I have ever come across that has worked has started with this first step. You have to know where you are. Knowing that helps you figure out what to move around, limit, or cut.
There are two parts to this first step.
1. Know your values
Values will give you a campus to work from. This part is all about asking what is it you want, what do you believe, what are your goals, and what are the whys for it all.
If this sounds like a lot it is. The fact is you are either going to shape up your thinking for what you want, believe and value or you are going to find your calendar filled with what everyone else wants. Then you get to continue to bounce along for the ride as your time continues to control you. Locking down your own thinking gives you control.
Your control comes give you the ablity to use the one key word that everyone, especially a writer or any other creative type, should be able to use easily, painlessly and even joyously…No.
This most essential word allows writers the time and peace of mind to get the thoughts in (research), processed (mental thinking space) and out through the rampant typing and editing of words. To be followed by publication, delivery or Ship It!
2. Inventory your schedule, both written and unwritten.
We are now going to move to a spreadsheet, calendar, paper or your cell planner. If you have been working from any calendar instead of winging it, you already have some data, which will help. But everyone should go through and list out exactly how their time has been spent in the last week or two.
You can just rely on memory here to jump start your data if you don’t have any, but everyone should still take the next week or two to collect fresh data on how you are actually using your day now. The rules are simple. Write down everything you do and the time you spend on it.
There are also some…
Watch out for anything you do while you are supposed to be doing something else. Note what it is and about how long it took to deal with it. This step exposes unscheduled problems, time wasters, focus issues, and so on. Knowing what is slowing down your work is a good way to find good solutions for the problems.
For instance, you are supposed to be doing your financial books for about two hours. But you find that you got distracted by the kids checking their homework, YouTube had a great video for the historic period you are writing on, and you got hungry so had some homemade cookies that you whipped up. Not really a surprise that your three hour project got turned into six and you are still only half way done now?
Watch you non-scheduled use…
One of the biggest things to cover when you are working through this process is to make notes of what you are using your nonscheduled time for too. You are not just going to find things you might want to cut down on or eliminate. For instance cutting the time you are binging The Floor is Lava Season Two for the fifth time in three weeks. You will also find other things you want to keep, such as horror movie with homemade desert night with your daughter and son.
Scheduling is about adding to your life’s quality, not just taking things out.
Step Two: Purge to create more space.
For this step you have to know importance and urgency. Your values are going to tell you this. You are always going to have a mix of both in life, but we can make sure the less important things in life are not allowed to drown out the more important and valuable things. If you are a writer then we are talking writing, family, care of self, income (likely not to be writing at the start) and other things. These things bounce around a bit thanks to urgency.
Now look through the data you have. Look for things provide no value to you or anyone important in your life. Ask yourself questions about the time usages and the tasks themselves.
Am I doing things that no one uses? Can I outsource this? Can I skip this? Does this have to be done every week on Monday or can I cut that back to once every six months or even delete it entirely? Is this duplicating my work over here? Can bunch all these tasks in one block of time?
Everything that can be purged is purged. Start with reoccurring meetings and repetitive tasks to get some momentum. No regrets.
Now we prioritized and reorganize.
Look at how your work is done. Block your work into time chunks so you can work on like items in batches. That would be like writing up all three of your blog posts for next week over six hours on Monday. Doing all your calls for an hour in the early afternoon. The goal is to eliminate bouncing around in your mind from focus to focus. You do not want to multi-task in these chunks.
Prioritize your work according to its value for you, realistic requirements on your time and the level of urgency for the work.
Cuts
Work to remove any excess time padding you use to cover your projects. Work seems to expand to fill any extra time we give it. Set earlier deadlines and work to meet or beat them. Don’t stress out if you don’t initially see a large change.
Give it some time. You will see how much you might be over or under estimating the amount of time you need. The trick here is to beat the clock not fill the schedule. Do only that. Over time you will increase your level of efficiency and likely raise your work’s quality as well.
Outsource
Outsource or automate where ever you can to improve your position not to just cut time. Sometimes outsourcing or automation is not a good idea. You will need to look at the pros and cons. In general if you can save time for something more productive, save what it would cost you to do it, or better align you with your compus values, then there is a good chance it is a good fit. Otherwise, be cautious. You might be just trading work for more work or worse paying to do more work.
Your goal is to free up white space on the calendar so that your daily schedule is flexible enough for the inevitable fires happen while maintaining productivity without sacrificing things like personal time or your peace of mind.
That leads me to the last step.
Make sure you write in down time. Clear thinking with your calendar is not just about getting work done. It’s about how you spend your time. You want a life, not a work. Give yourself time with yourself, space for those you love, and room for the things you want to do. Like heading on to your next project…Finish Your Long Project In 11 Steps
Photo by Elena Kloppenburg on Unsplash