Tag Archives: time management

ROW80: Sometimes, there really isn’t enough time

by Jennette,

I kept my load light again this week, knowing it would be a busy one with two web design project to do outside of my day job. But Wednesday, I still wasn’t where I wanted to be, so I re-evaluated how I was spending my time. Surely there was something in there, somewhere I was spending too much time taking “breaks” to play Solitaire, etc.

But there wasn’t. That night I accounted for every 15 minutes, and only one 15-minute segment was spent on a game break. Otherwise, every bit of it was spent plotting my next book, exercising, reading/answering email/blogs/social media, or working on web design (two hours there).

Sometimes there really isn’t any extra time, and we have to admit that we can’t do it all without sacrificing sleep (not a good idea, health-wise or productivity/quality-wise, for me). Here’s how the week went:

  • Work halfway through Lesson 8 of How to Think Sideways – almost! But not quite.
  • Initial design for the builder’s website – started, but not enough to show him. Hopefully tonight!
  • Publish and host the massage therapists’ website – Done! And she loves it!
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – Done!
  • Work back into tracking exercise and consumption – minimum four days this week – uh… no. Maybe next ROW80.

Here are the overall goals:

  • Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Done!
  • Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – Done!
  • How to Think Sideways workshop – complete through Lesson 8 – on track!
  • Get Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) ready for release as an ebook – not going to happen, but since I’m delaying the release, that’s OK.

Next check-in will be my last for this ROW, as I don’t do Wednesday check-ins. So here’s this week’s plan:

  • Finish Lesson 8 of How to Think Sideways
  • Initial design for the builder’s website
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts

How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – are you on track for your overall goals?

ROW80: Cheating… sort of

by Jennette,

I knew I’d need to go easy on the goals this week. I did manage to meet all of my pared-down goals, so it all worked out. It wasn’t easy – I had a push on one yesterday, and it was hard to motivate myself to do my workout, but I did it!

  • Complete Lesson 6b of How to Think Sideways – Done, although I sort of cheated on a couple parts. One involved reviewing my WIP to the point I’ve done it, and I haven’t really started it yet, so that one was a gimme.
  • Cover design for Times Two – Done!
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts. Done!

Times Two Box Set, coming this summer

Hangar 18 is not going to be ready for release this ROW, as it’s still with beta readers. I’d planned to release either it or Times Two, but decided to participate in a promotional opportunity in mid-June that doesn’t make a release feasible. So I’m changing my goal to get it formatted and ready for release, but won’t hit Publish probably until mid-July. So here are the overall goals:

  • Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Done!
  • Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – Done!
  • How to Think Sideways workshop – complete through Lesson 8 – on track!
  • Get Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) ready for release as an ebook – on track!

This week’s going to be another tricky one, as I have taken on a couple of side web design jobs. One is for my massage therapist, whose site I designed several months ago, but who didn’t provide me any content until yesterday. The other is a new site for a builder who did a second-story addition for us about 10 years ago. So with working those in, here are the plans:

  • Work halfway through Lesson 8 of How to Think Sideways
  • Initial design for the builder’s website
  • Publish and host the massage therapists’ website if she gets the rest of the content to me
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
  • Work back into tracking exercise and consumption – minimum four days this week

How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

ROW80: Just Zippy!

by Jennette,

On the gerbil front, things are just peachy! We removed the divider on Monday, and things were a little touch and go as there was a lot of chasing and confrontation to establish who was the alpha, mostly between Sandy (our older gerbil) and Finn. They were still at it when we were ready for bed, so we replaced the divider.

Later in the week, it occurred to me that a cage cleaning might help, as the bedding would have had more Sandy-scent on it than the young gerbils’ scents. It did the trick, and we now have a happily-slumbering pile of gerbils in the corner of the tank!

I also added to my menagerie yet again the other day. Last Christmas, I asked for a fancy, lighted 5-gallon aquarium and other stuff for a betta fish. One of my coworkers has one at the office and her fish is so fun to watch! I got a couple things, but didn’t receive the aquarium until my birthday a couple weeks ago. So Friday we made another trip to Pet Supplies Plus, where I bought food, gravel, and the tank’s occupant.

I chose the fish that got the most excited when I reached for his cup, a pretty red betta with iridescent blue highlights. Boy does he love his new home! He zips around in it all day. Thus, his name: Zippy. He sits on my desk, so hopefully he’ll bring a little “zip” to my writing process.

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been much of that this week, and even less in the fitness department:

  • Complete Lesson 7 of How to Think Sideways, plus Lesson 6B, which I missed last week. – Lesson 7 done, still working on 6b. It’s more time-consuming than I expected.
  • Cover design for Times Two – started, but not done.
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts. I can blame migraines and too much running around, but that’s just an excuse. Going to do better this week!
  • Track exercise and consumption – uh…. no.

I checked with my beta readers for Hangar 18, and that’s not going to be ready in time for the deadline. So my focus there has switched to Times Two. Overall goal progress:

  • Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Done!
  • Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – Done!
  • How to Think Sideways workshop – complete through Lesson 8 – on track!
  • Release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – on track!
For this week, I’m going to go a little easy again. I have a  Memorial Day party later today, and a Readers con this coming Friday and Saturday, both of which will be fun but make it hard to track food. So I’m scratching that for this week, but still going to try to get my workouts in. It does, however, mean less time to work on my writing.
  • Complete Lesson 6B of How to Think Sideways
  • Cover design for Times Two
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts

How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring?

ROW80: What’s in a Name

by Jennette,

First of all, the baby gerbils have names! It took us until Thursday to come up with the ones that both my daughter and I said, “Yes! That’s it!” We took Ginger Calem‘s  suggestion for the lilac gerbil, and named him Finn, short for “infinity,” which is how far he’d run on that wheel if he could. Thanks, Ginger, and to everyone else who offered suggestions!

Reggie and Finn (curled up sleeping) in a rare moment of stillness

The spotted Siamese boy was trickier. It turns out, he likes the wheel too – when Finn stops long enough for him to get a turn. He’s also calmer, and friendlier – when we hold him, he often purrs. (Finn has a couple of times.) My daughter thought with how pretty he is, he deserved a regal-sounding name. After several “nah, that’s not it,” I came up with Reginald – or Reggie. She liked it. So today we’ll remove the divider, and see how Finn and Reggie get along with Sandy.

And how did I do with ROW80? Not as well, I’m afraid. The various celebratory dinners and such cut into writing time. It’s also been nice out all week, so that cuts into motivation as well. However, it’s a new day, so I’m going to do better next week!

  • Complete Lesson 7 of How to Think Sideways – Got about halfway through. This was a long one.
  • Follow up with beta readers for Hangar 18 – Done! One is almost done, waiting to hear back from the other.
  • Write two guest blogs I promised – the one from last week, and a new request – Done!
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts – Nope. Got the three intervals in, which is the more important.
  • Track exercise and consumption – Not even close. This was a lost cause with it being birthday week. I’ll do better next week.

Overall goal progress:

  • Release Time’s Fugitive, in both ebook and print – Done!
  • Complete Holly Lisle’s How to Write a Series workshop – Done!
  • How to Think Sideways workshop – complete through Lesson 8 (1-4 done previously) – on track!
  • Release Hangar 18: Legacy – OR – release Times Two (Time’s Enemy/Time’s Fugitive box set) as an ebook – on track!
  • Bonus: Both of the above – on hold until other goals accomplished
For this week, I’m going to go a little easier. This coming weekend is Memorial Day weekend, which means extra socializing, and we also have my daughter’s choir concert to attend one evening.
  • Complete Lesson 7 of How to Think Sideways, plus Lesson 6B, which I missed last week.
  • Cover design for Times Two
  • Three interval workouts and two shorter workouts
  • Track exercise and consumption

How are you doing in this round of ROW80 – or if you’re not a writer, or not doing the ROW, for this spring? Do you have any big plans for Memorial Day weekend?

ROW80 Recap

by Jennette,

Quick ROW80 update, since I don’t normally do mid-week updates, but today ends the round.

My primary goal was to release Time’s Fugitive.

That didn’t happen. But it’s close! Here’s the breakdown:

  • Finish revision of Time’s Fugitive – Done
  • Send to beta readers – Done
  • Make changes based on beta reads – Done
  • Send to editor – Done
  • Prepare front matter, back matter, product description, and everything else needed before release – Done
  • Format book – nope
  • Develop marketing plan (preferably before release, but probably after) – Mostly done
  • Release Time’s Fugitive – no, but soon!

So what hit the wall? Well, some of those goals were dependent on other people: my beta readers and copy editor. My revisions also took a little longer than I expected, so that set me behind by about three weeks. Then the beta readers also needed more time than I expected – this is a looooong book. So it’s now with my editor. The good news is, she says she’s not finding much! So look for Time’s Fugitive soon!

The next round of ROW80 starts April 2. I’m definitely in! How about you? How did you do this ROW? Will you be joining us for Round 2?

ROW80: Slight Change in Plans

by Jennette,

Another good week! And that was with adding a task I hadn’t planned for – but it’s all good!

A few weeks ago, my friend Michele Stegman put out a call for guest posts on her blog. She wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day by spending the month of February featuring the real-life stories of how romance writers met their real-life heroes.

So I wrote up my story, sent it to her, and pretty much forgot about it until the day she’d scheduled my story to post. Oh, I went to her blog and commented some of the others stories – there are some good ones! – and tweeted a few, but that’s about it.

A couple weeks ago, she asked me if I’d like to be in an anthology – not a new story (thank goodness, since short stories are something I haven’t really mastered!) but my real-life story, “Looking for Mr. Goodwrench.” It turns out her husband had read some of the stories, and suggested she collect them into an ebook.

Thus was born How I Met My Husband: The Real-life Love Stories of 25 Romance Authors. I designed a cover and helped Michele with some of the formatting, and guess what – I have a new release on my virtual bookshelf! It’s free on Smashwords, and $0.99 on Amazon (although you can download the Kindle format on Smashwords). We expect it to be available on Barnesandnoble.com, iTunes, Sony, Diesel, and Kobo ebookstores soon. These are fun stories that you can read in a few minutes – great while you’re waiting in line somewhere! And there’s an excerpt of each author’s latest release. Did I mention it’s free? So if this sounds like something you like, go to Smashwords, download your free copy, and read how I met my own, personal Mr. Goodwrench.

With my graphic design background, I’m super picky about formatting and of course, the cover art, so this did take me some time. But I still managed to get my ROW80 goals accomplished, because I’d left them flexible, and allowed room for surprises!

Last week’s results:

  1. Review HTTS Lessons 1-5
  2. Send Hangar 18: Legacy to beta readers
  3. Finish budget for RWA chapter (I’m the treasurer)
  4. Set up reader newsletter
  5. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  6. Track food intake every day (Still missed a meal or two on this one)

I marked my first goal, review Lessons 1-5 in How to Think Sideways, green, even though I technically didn’t do all of them. I actually reviewed Lesson 1 the week before, and didn’t get to Lesson 5. But I marked it green because I decided I wanted to do her How to Write a Series course before going further with the plans for a single book, because the book I want to work on next is indeed the start to a new series, and I want to do this right. I completed Lesson 1 yesterday, so I count that as being equivalent to a lesson on HTTS. What’s awesome about HTWAS? The work I do for the exercises and worksheets will be the start of planning out my book.

Next week’s plans (I can’t believe this round is over after this week!):

  1. View videos 1-3 for Lesson 2 of How to Write a Series (yep, this is the one that has videos. They’re worth it.)
  2. Complete worksheets for part 1 and 2 of HTWAS Lesson 2 (These are very in-depth and will take a while!)
  3. Request two more beta readers for Hangar 18: Legacy
  4. Write content for reader newsletter and start promoting it
  5. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  6. Track food and exercise each day

OR, if my copy editor finishes with Time’s Fugitive, put off items 1 through 4 to get that formatted and uploaded, since that was my primary objective for this ROWnd.

How did you do this week? Have you had to change plans lately regarding your goals? Are you still on target to meet your goals for this ROWnd? I’d love to hear from you!

ROW80: To-do List Balancing Act, and the Weekly Status Report

by Jennette,

This round of ROW80 has brought more learning – never a bad thing!

I learned that I do better if I schedule tasks throughout the week, particularly big tasks that need to be broken up into smaller chunks, like read-aloud editing and type-in.

I also learned that too much scheduled stuff is an invitation to get even less done.

It’s a balancing act – schedule what needs to be, without being overwhelming.

It's a balancing act!

I think I pulled it off this week. I scheduled my workouts (which I always do), and some of my writing tasks, since I’m still in a weird, in-between place there. I didn’t get quite everything done. But overall, I’m happy with what I did.

Last week’s results:

  1. Finish Time’s Fugitive beta reader changes and send to copy editor
  2. Format Hangar 18: Legacy for Kindle and send to beta readers (emailed them, waiting to hear what format they want)
  3. Collect remaining tax stuff for accountant
  4. Read nonfiction book for research
  5. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  6. Track food intake every day (missed one day, but getting better!)

So, I am pretty much in limbo for the two current projects, writing-wise. One is with my copy editor. The other is ready for beta readers. So it’s time to – yikes! – work on something… new! To that end, I’m going to jump back into a writing course I bought a year ago, and only got through five lessons before I decided to focus on getting other work out. This is Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways.

This week’s plans:

  1. Review HTTS Lessons 1-5
  2. Send Hangar 18: Legacy to beta readers
  3. Finish budget for RWA chapter (I’m the treasurer)
  4. Set up reader newsletter
  5. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  6. Track food intake every day (keeping this one on the list, because I’m still going back and entering this stuff the following day, which means I’m probably forgetting a few things)

Last week, a few folks asked about my Weekly Status Report. I totally stole this from my day job a few years ago. It’s pretty simple. I list each active project, with a total of how many hours I spent on it the past week, what my accomplishments were, and my plans for the upcoming week. My time estimates are rough, but this still gives me a good idea of time spent – and will further my case that my writing is a serious business, should the IRS ever come calling. I’ve put an example of it here, in case you’re interested.

How did you do this week? Do you keep track of your weekly progress somewhere besides your blog?

ROW80: Shuffling Along, but A-MAZEballs

by Jennette,

This has been another less-than-stellar week, goal-wise, in which I’m not unlike a zombie.

But mostly, it’s felt like shuffling cards. Last week, my attempt to bring my burgeoning to-do list under control involved simply culling a bunch of stuff, sort of like pulling the twos through eights out of a standard deck of cards before playing Euchre.

I put the deck away each night, and each night, it seemed that gremlins were intent on finding those extraneous cards and shoving them back into the deck. So each day, the deck grew until it was back to being a standard 52-card deck.

No royal flush here!

The other thing I tried doing was shuffling. But shuffling doesn’t remove any cards. Likewise, moving a task that didn’t get done on Monday to Tuesday only increases the Tuesday list. The only solution I can see is to give up the to-do list for lent cut down the list even more, to the bare essentials. I even had a little reprieve last week, when I found my daughter had a band concert I’d forgotten about (i.e., not looked far ahead enough on the calendar). I rescheduled the meeting with the accountant, so I didn’t need to have the taxes done until this week. I was hoping to get them done anyway, but that didn’t happen. So now they’re definitely on the “bare essentials” list.

Last week’s results:

  1. Review Time’s Fugitive beta reader feedback (yes, it came back from the third beta)
  2. Collect remaining tax stuff for accountant
  3. Complete interview questions for guest blog
  4. Read nonfiction book for research
  5. Pick one task from marketing list, and implement it
  6. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts (Did two interval workouts and two short workouts)
  7. Track food intake every day (wow, I ate out too much last week!)

The good news is, that this beta read confirmed for me that I’ve found my Ideal Reader (as described by Stephen King in On Writing). This is the person who totally gets my work and loves it, but is also critical enough to see where I’ve screwed up something, left out something that needs to be put in, or left in something that isn’t needed. And she’s a good enough friend and writer to point all of this stuff out (or, when there isn’t much, to note that fact too, so I wouldn’t think she just fell asleep reading the long passage with no comments). And she didn’t have many comments, something I attribute to having put this book through the Holly Lisle “How to Revise Your Novel” wringer. And she said Time’s Fugitive is “EPIC” (yes, in all caps!) and “totally aMAZEballs!” And that she hated me because she stayed up until 5 AM reading, which is what we all want to be hated for. 😀

The other good thing is that I went through her comments and the other two beta readers’ (they are wonderful, too!) and made most of the changes they suggested, or at least considered them. I have just a couple more to address, then Time’s Fugitive is off to my awesome copy editor.

This week’s plans:

  1. Finish Time’s Fugitive beta reader changes and send to copy editor
  2. Format Hangar 18: Legacy for Kindle and send to beta readers
  3. Collect remaining tax stuff for accountant
  4. Read nonfiction book for research (it’s due back at the library this week)
  5. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  6. Track food intake every day (keeping this one on the list, because I’m still going back and entering this stuff the following day, which means I’m probably forgetting a few things)

How did you do this week? Do you find yourself still putting too much on your list to accomplish without burning out? Or have you mastered the shuffle that keeps the unneeded cards out? Or are you shuffling like a zombie? And for the authors here, on the good side of things, have you found your Ideal Reader?

ROW80: Giving up The To-Do List for Lent

by Jennette,

No, not me. I’m not even Catholic. It’s my friend Jim Winter who’s giving something unusual up for Lent: his To-Do list.

Just the thought strikes terror into me. Without my To-Do list, I’d forget half the appointments I make – and I don’t have that many. I’d forget how much I’d planned to write – that evening, or that week. I’d forget to do the business paperwork, until my husband demanded it get done now (which doesn’t work very well). But Jim’s blog post made me think about how lately, I’ve again fallen into the tendency to overload my to-do list. Jim made the radical-sounding choice he did because he ended up serving his to-do list, rather than it serving him. It was removing flexibility from his evenings, to the point where he felt he couldn’t even go for a walk – because he’d planned other things instead. It’s easy to fall into the same trap by overloading the list, which is why I think I didn’t get anything on mine done last week, except the writing (which didn’t even take that long).

Last week’s results:

  1. Review Hangar 18: Legacy for beta reader edits and research details
  2. Collect tax stuff for accountant
  3. Complete interview questions for guest blog
  4. Read nonfiction book for research
  5. Make list of review sites to submit to
  6. Pick one task off of marketing list developed last week, and implement it
  7. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  8. 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)

So I made a half-ass attempt at some of these items: I started collecting the tax stuff. I have a deadline on that, as I’m meeting with the accountant this week. I did all three interval workouts, but only one short workout, and only tracked my food a couple days, probably because I know it’s not good (darn Girl Scout cookies!).

So something has to give, but it’s not the to-do list – at least, not the whole thing. Instead, I’m going to limit it: no more than two tasks, besides my workout and writing. I think the reason so little else got done was because it was just too overwhelming. We’ll see how that goes!

Here’s the plan:

  • Review Time’s Fugitive beta reader feedback (hopefully I’ll get it back from the third beta)
  • Collect tax stuff for accountant
  • Complete interview questions for guest blog
  • Read nonfiction book for research
  • Pick one task from marketing list, and implement it
  • Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  • Track food intake every day

How did you do this week? What do you think of my friend Jim’s radical plan?

ROW80: Slacker

by Jennette,

 

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:

  1. Critique a chapter for a writing friend
  2. Book review
  3. Additional work requested for side job website
  4. Break down marketing task list into Yeses, Nos, and Maybes
  5. Brainstorm some articles I can write for my newsletter
  6. Review my last draft of my next book and get it ready for beta readers
  7. 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:

  1. Review Hangar 18: Legacy for beta reader edits and research details
  2. Collect tax stuff for accountant
  3. Complete interview questions for guest blog
  4. Read nonfiction book for research
  5. Make list of review sites to submit to
  6. Pick one task off of marketing list developed last week, and implement it
  7. Three interval workouts plus two short workouts
  8. 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