CornerScribe

Archive for the ‘Productivity’ Category

Whether it’s editing your novel or scrubbing the toilet, there are things that you need to do, even want to do, but just can’t find the motivation to do. When you’re in that situation, what do you do?

1. Do it for five minutes. The key here is truly letting yourself off the hook after your five minutes is up. If you know you’re going to force yourself to continue, you just won’t start. After all, that’s the problem in the first place. The good part about this is that you at least get something done. If the task is small, you may even complete it. However, if you use this tactic too often, you may fool yourself into believing you’re “working” on a project when you’re not.
2. Envision it complete. How would it feel to finish up what you’re dreading? Take a few minutes and allow yourself to really feel those emotions. Close your eyes and visualize putting the finishing touch on the novel or sticking the dreaded tax forms in the mail. Use those positive feelings to push yourself to do it.
3. List the benefits. What benefits will you gain by finishing the task? You’ll be able to ship the novel off to an agent if you take time to finish it. You’ll be ready to write this weekend if you clean the house tonight. Let yourself get carried away if you want, but imagine all the good things that can or will happen because you finally tackled that project. (more…)

   

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I’m still fighting off a cold, so my progress post is late. I hope I’m not the only one who finds that a bit ironic.

Well, here’s how I’m doing.

1. Spend two hours on the novel done
2. Spend two hours on the non-fiction grammar book I have in the works no, and I’m thinking of pulling this off my list for now
3. Go through my e-mail done
4. Find at least one new short story market done, but not posted yet. Will do that soon
5. Write 3-4 blog posts for each of my 3 blogs done
6. Send thank you’s to people who stumbled my posts no
7. Spend at least an hour commenting and stumbling on others’ blogs some time, but not an hour
8. Write one article started, but not finished
9. Work on Elance profile for at least one hour no
10. Friend a few people on twitter (I’m cornerscribe) done
11. Spend two hours networking on Entrecard done

Not bad for being sick, I think. What tips do you have to be productive?

Wow, what a spectacularly unproductive week. We were out of town a couple days, and then I came down with a rotten cold. Anyway, here is my update, such as it is.

1. Spend two hours on the novel no
2. Spend two hours on the non-fiction grammar book I have in the works no
3. Go through my e-mail yes
4. Find at least one new short story market no
5. Write 3-4 blog posts for each of my 3 blogs no
6. Send thank you’s to people who stumbled my posts no
7. Spend at least an hour commenting and stumbling on others’ blogs no
8. Write one article no
9. Work on Elance profile for at least one hour no
10. Friend a few people on twitter (I’m cornerscribe) no
11. Spend two hours networking on Entrecard spent 1 hour
    

That’s terrible, isn’t it? I’m going to leave my goals the same for the upcoming week. Let’s try to do better, shall we?

1. Spend two hours on the novel
2. Spend two hours on the non-fiction grammar book I have in the works
3. Go through my e-mail
4. Find at least one new short story market
5. Write 3-4 blog posts for each of my 3 blogs
6. Send thank you’s to people who stumbled my posts
7. Spend at least an hour commenting and stumbling on others’ blogs
8. Write one article
9. Work on Elance profile for at least one hour
10. Friend a few people on twitter (I’m cornerscribe)
11. Spend two hours networking on Entrecard

Last week, I set some goals for this week. So, here I am to update you on how I did.

1. Go through my e-mail (not yet, but I plan to tonight)
2. Write 3-4 blog posts for each of my 3 blogs (done for 2 blogs, only 1 post for the third)
3. Send thank you’s to people who stumbled my posts (done)
4. Spend at least an hour commenting and stumbling on others’ blogs (done)
5. Write one article (done, and submitted it too)
6. Spend two hours on the non-fiction grammar book I have in the works (nope)
7. Spend two hours on the novel (ahem… nope)
8. Send one inquiry about guest blogging (done)
9. Spend two hours networking on Entrecard (done)
10. Find at least one new short story market (no)

While I didn’t accomplish everything I wanted to (obviously), I’m still pleased with the amount of work I did get finished. I think the real benefit of an exercise like this is getting MORE accomplished, not necessarily everything on the list.

And here’s my list for the upcoming week. Those items that didn’t get finished this week will get higher priority next. If you’re doing something similar on your own blog, leave a link in comments and I’ll link to you.

This week, my goal is to finish the following.

1. Spend two hours on the novel
2. Spend two hours on the non-fiction grammar book I have in the works
3. Go through my e-mail
4. Find at least one new short story market
5. Write 3-4 blog posts for each of my 3 blogs
6. Send thank you’s to people who stumbled my posts
7. Spend at least an hour commenting and stumbling on others’ blogs
8. Write one article
9. Work on Elance profile for at least one hour
10. Friend a few people on twitter (I’m cornerscribe)
11. Spend two hours networking on Entrecard

links

Originally uploaded by lizjones112

Here are some interesting (and useful) writing links that I’ve come across lately.

Tools to Life

This site lets you set and track goals, and get support from group members as well. Warning: the site has sound.

MindMeister

This is an online mind-mapping tool. Yes, there’s a free version.

Google Smart-Pricing

Courtney Tuttle explains how to avoid having Google devalue your adsense clicks because one (or more) of your sites has a low click through rate. Yes, this explains why you don’t see adsense here.

Short Stories

East of the Web has a place where you can post your short stories and share them.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Here’s one for fun. Enjoy!

I’m taking a cue from e-Moms at Home and her Monday Motivation. I’m not into the reward (or punishment) like she is, so I’m just going to see how being publicly accountable works out for me.

Here’s what I’m going to do…

1. Announce each Monday what I plan to accomplish for the week.
2. Update by the end of the week and let everyone know how I did.

By Sunday night, I will

1. Go through my e-mail
2. Write 3-4 blog posts for each of my 3 blogs
3. Send thank you’s to people who stumbled my posts
4. Spend at least an hour commenting and stumbling on others’ blogs
5. Write one article
6. Spend two hours on the non-fiction grammar book I have in the works
7. Spend two hours on the novel
8. Send one inquiry about guest blogging
9. Spend two hours networking on Entrecard
10. Find at least one new short story market

Wow, that sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Care to join me? List your goals for the week below, or leave a link to your own post.

I’ve been trying to get better about responding to e-mail, and to do it more quickly. I find that I get a couple hundred messages daily, but most of those are either spam, newsletters, reminders, or other messages that I don’t really need to respond to.

And buried amongst those are the e-mails I DO need to respond to.

Here are a few things I’ve begun doing to help me master my inbox and stay on top of e-mail.

Create filters 

E-mail filters will help you to automatically organize your e-mails into those that you need to handle right away and those that can wait until you have some time. First, take a quick look through your inbox, sorting it by sender. Where are those e-mails coming from?

You can make several folders, one for each sender. If you prefer, put all of your non-critical e-mails into one folder. I prefer the former because it makes it easier for me to clean the folders out periodically.

Click one of the messages. You should have an option to create a filter using that message. In Thunderbird, you’ll find it under the Message menu. Once you’ve created the filter, choose the option to run it on the messages you have in your folder.

Depending on your inbox, you may need a few sessions before you get all the filters set up that you’ll need. Once you start seeing the benefit, you won’t miss the time it takes to get set up.

Yes, it felt great to see my inbox reduced so quickly!

Don’t do e-mail every day

This might seem counterintuitive, but it’s not if you think about it. E-mail takes a lot of time, especially if you try to respond to those who’ve emailed or commented on your blogs. Rather than doing that daily, I find that setting aside one or two days a week is better for me. I can get into the e-mail “mindset” and get a lot done in one sitting.

Another benefit is that I don’t allow myself to get bogged down daily with e-mail and not have time for other writing.

Purge! 

Be ruthless. Do you really read that newsletter? Do you need to get all the e-mail updates you’re subscribed to? Take the time to unsubscribe from as many things as you can. You’ll appreciate the lack of clutter in your inbox.

You’re writing one or more blogs and keeping up with them pretty well. Why would you take the time to keep a blogging schedule?

Before we get started, let me know you what my blogging schedule looks like for the first few days of March.

3/1 NaNoEdMo kickoff post

3/2 Popular links from February

3/3 Synergy Magazine

3/4 Using email filters to manage your email and get more done

As you see, I don’t do anything terribly fancy, but I do this for each of my blogs to keep me on track. I’ve found that it has multiple benefits.

• When I have an idea, I add it to the “schedule” before I forget it. This also keeps most of my blogging ideas in one place
• Since I already have ideas in the works, I face writer’s block much less often
• If I have something time-sensitive, I put it on the schedule so I won’t forget it
• I can be sure that I’m covering each of my categories as well as I’d like to since I have a monthly overview of what I’m writing about
• I can build some anticipation for posts by mentioning that they’re upcoming
• My reading time also benefits my blogging more with this method. When I see a post that I’d like to reference or get an idea, I drop it onto the schedule
• To save even more time, I sometimes write the posts ahead of time and schedule them to post via wordpress
• I often add my fiction and other non-fiction to the schedule as well, giving me an easy way to view where my writing time is going

If you’re not already keeping some sort of writing/blogging schedule, then I challenge you to try it for a month. I’ve found that it really speeds up my writing time by allowing me to write instead of try to find something to write about. Let me know how it works out for you.

What do you want to accomplish in the new year?

I’m not big on resolutions. I think they’re a great way to make yourself feel bad, so I avoid them. I do, from time to time, like to think about where I want to be and whether I’m on the right track to get there. This time of the year is a good time to do that.

I think a good thing to start with is to review where you are and what you’ve done well. Where are you on track?  I think we’re too quick at this time of the year to knock ourselves for what we lack, what we haven’t done. This review is a great way to look at the positive side of things.

Next, think about what you want to do now, where you want to continue to grow and what you want to do differently. Are you on track to do that? What might you do to move that along better? Take a few minutes and write down some of the things you want.

Here’s the important part… For each goal you’ve written down, write down at least one thing you can start doing right now to move you in that direction.

It doesn’t matter how much you want it, think about it, dream about it, or anything else. What matters is what you’re doing about it. You can dream all day long, but until you start to take action to move your dreams along, it’s not going to happen. So, for each thing, write down at least one thing you can do now to move yourself in the right direction.

So, here are some of my writing goals.

1. Finish the two novel rough drafts I have and get them out to publishers. I plan to spend 2-3 evenings a week working on the novels.
2. Publish at least three short stories. I have one coming up for publication this spring, so I’m not counting it. I have a short story I need to rewrite and start sending out.
3. Publish at least three free stories online. First, I need to decide if I want to use my own site or something like scribd. So, some research is in order first.
4. Continue to regularly post on this and my other blogs. I’ve already put together a posting schedule that should help me plan my posts and stay on track, if not ahead.
5. Increase my page views by 20 percent per month this year for each blog. I’m gong to work on getting more links, participating in writing groups, blog carnivals, etc. I’ll do one of these each week.
6. Increasy my RSS subscribers by 10 percent per month this year for each blog. Although my page views are currently pretty good, my subscriber numbers are terrible. My first step is to do some research on effective ways to increase RSS subscribers.

What are your writing goals, and what will you do to reach them?

As you know, I’m busy NaNo-ing this month. For those of you who may have missed these, here are five of the most popular blog posts on the site. Take a minute and check them out, and then get back to your novel!

Get Ready for NaNo

Two Great Market Resources

Short Story Markets

Writing Tools

What’s Holding You Back?